Bbmaj13 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Bbmaj13 — drop 2 voicings
Bbmaj13 is Bb, D, F, A, C and G — Bbmaj9 with the thirteenth on top, and the eleventh left out.
It sounds full and wide open. Six notes into four fingers means something goes: keep the third, the seventh and the thirteenth.
Bbmaj13 notes and formula
| Bb | D | F | A | C | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Also written BbM13, BbΔ13 or Bb major 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bbmaj13
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
Bbmaj13 has 13 of them, on the bottom four strings, the top four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: Bb in the bass, D in the bass, A in the bass and G in the bass. The one to learn first is the G shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the bottom 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 x11233 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Bbmaj13 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 4 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x11233 | 1st fret | Bb, root position | G | all fretted |
| 655565 | 5th fret | Bb, root position | A | barred |
| 667786 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | Bb | barred |
| x-10-8-8-10-10 | 8th fret | G, 13th in the bass | D | barred |
| x-13-12-12-10-10 | 10th fret | Bb, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-13-10-12-10-10 | 10th fret | Bb, root position | D | barred |
| x-13-13-14-15-15 | 13th fret | Bb, root position | G | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 9 drop 3, 26 rootless and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bbmaj13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (E).
How to use Bbmaj13
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bbmaj13 is Cm7 to F7 — the ii and the V of Bb — and F7 shares its third and seventh with Cm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Bbmaj13 belongs to D minor (the ♭VI), F major (the IV, the subdominant), G minor (the ♭III) and Bb major (the I, the tonic).
What to play over Bbmaj13
Every note of Bbmaj13 is in Bb major and Bb lydian.
Chords near Bbmaj13
Change one note of Bbmaj13 and you have Bbmaj9 (drop the sixth), Bbmaj11 (the sixth becomes a fourth), Bb69 (drop the major seventh) or Bb13 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Bbmaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Bbmaj13’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.