C13 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 C13 — rootless voicings
C13 is C, E, G, Bb, D and A — C9 with the thirteenth added on top.
It sounds big and open. Six notes will not fit under four fingers: the fifth goes first, then the ninth, and the third, flat seventh and thirteenth stay.
C13 notes and formula
| C | E | G | Bb | D | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 | 13 |
Dominant — the full V chord.
Also written Cdom13 or C dominant 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play C13
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.
C13 has 24 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: E in the bass, G in the bass, Bb in the bass, D in the bass and A in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
8 of them sit on the middle 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 x32355 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for C13 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 6 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 10th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32355 | 2nd fret | C, root position | A | all fretted |
| x32335 | 2nd fret | C, root position | A | barred |
| 333355 | 3rd fret | G, 2nd inversion | A | barred |
| 857556 | 5th fret | C, root position | Bb | barred |
| 877786 | 6th fret | C, root position | Bb | barred |
| 8-8-8-9-10-10 | 8th fret | C, root position | D | barred |
| 8-10-8-9-10-8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 13 drop 2, 9 drop 3 and 4 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of C13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (F#).
How to use C13
C13 is the V of F, and that is where it goes if it goes anywhere: the third and the flat seventh are a tritone apart, and both resolve by a semitone into F.
Voice by voice, C13 → F. 2 voices move by a semitone, and 2 notes are common to both chords.
| In C13 | Moves | In F |
|---|---|---|
| C, the root | stays where it is | C, the fifth |
| E, the major third | rises a semitone | F, the root |
| G, the fifth | falls a whole tone | F, the root |
| Bb, the flat seventh | falls a semitone | A, the major third |
| D, the ninth | falls a whole tone | C, the fifth |
| A, the thirteenth | stays where it is | A, the major third |
In which keys. Every note of C13 belongs to D minor (the ♭VII) and F major (the V, the dominant).
What to play over C13
Every note of C13 is in C mixolydian and C lydian dominant.
Chords near C13
Change one note of C13 and you have Cmaj13 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), C69 (drop the flat seventh), C9 (drop the sixth) or C9#11 (the sixth becomes a flat fifth).
C13 is a dominant chord — root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. Dominant seventh chords on every root.
On C13’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.