BbmMaj11 guitar chord
Root, third and seventh: the guide tones fix the quality, so the fifth is dropped. That is what leaves a string free, so pick a tension to put on top.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About BbmMaj11 — shell voicings
BbmMaj11 is Bb, Db, F, A, C and Eb — BbmMaj9 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.
BbmMaj11 notes and formula
| Bb | Db | F | A | C | Eb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written BbmM11 or Bbm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play BbmMaj11
Root, third and seventh. The third and seventh, the guide tones, are what make the chord major, minor or dominant, so the fifth can go: it says nothing the symbol needs.
Three notes means a spare string, which is the real point. Put a tension on it.
BbmMaj11 has 4 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2, the bottom four strings, strings 5-3-2-1 and the top four strings, from the 4th fret up to the 11th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the 4th fret.
Start with x-x-8-8-10-9 — no barre. None of the shapes for BbmMaj11 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 5 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x11221 | 1st fret | Bb, root position | F | barred |
| x11331 | 1st fret | Bb, root position | F | barred |
| 667668 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-8-8-10-9 | 8th fret | Bb, root position | Db | all fretted |
| x-8-8-8-10-9 | 8th fret | F, 2nd inversion | Db | barred |
| x-13-11-14-13-11 | 11th fret | Bb, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x-13-13-14-14-13 | 13th fret | Bb, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 13 drop 2, 8 drop 3 and 25 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of BbmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (G).
How to use BbmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on BbmMaj11 is Cm7♭5 to F7♭9: the ii and the V of Bb minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over BbmMaj11
Every note of BbmMaj11 is in Bb harmonic minor and Bb melodic minor.
Chords near BbmMaj11
Change one note of BbmMaj11 and you have Bbmaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Bbm11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or BbmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
BbmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On BbmMaj11’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.