BmMaj11 guitar chord
The root left to the bass player. Frees a finger for a tension.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About BmMaj11 — rootless voicings
BmMaj11 is B, D, F#, A#, C# and E — BmMaj9 with the eleventh added on top.
It sounds dense and unresolved. Something is always omitted; the ♭3 and the natural 7 are what must not be.
BmMaj11 notes and formula
| B | D | F# | A# | C# | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written BmM11 or Bm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play BmMaj11
Leave the root to the bass player. In a band nobody misses it, and the ear supplies it from the guide tones anyway.
The finger it frees goes to a tension, which is why these sound richer than the shape they came from rather than thinner.
BmMaj11 has 24 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: D in the bass, F# in the bass, A# in the bass, C# in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the D shape at the 2nd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
8 of them sit on the top four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with x20320 — no barre and 2 open strings. 1 of the 8 shapes here sits in open position. 5 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x20320 | open position | B, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| x22332 | 2nd fret | B, root position | F# | barred |
| x22442 | 2nd fret | B, root position | F# | barred |
| 778779 | 7th fret | B, root position | C# | barred |
| x-x-9-9-11-10 | 9th fret | B, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-9-9-9-11-10 | 9th fret | F#, 2nd inversion | D | barred |
| x-14-12-15-14-12 | 12th fret | B, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-14-14-15-15-14 | 14th fret | B, root position | F# | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 7 shell, 15 drop 2, 10 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of BmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (G#).
How to use BmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on BmMaj11 is C#m7♭5 to F#7♭9: the ii and the V of B minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over BmMaj11
Every note of BmMaj11 is in B harmonic minor and B melodic minor.
Chords near BmMaj11
Change one note of BmMaj11 and you have Bmaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Bm11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or BmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
BmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On BmMaj11’s sound and use this page follows Ted Pease & Ken Pullig, Modern Jazz Voicings (Berklee Press, 2001). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.