C13 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 C13 — shell 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
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.
C13 has 2 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from the 3rd fret up to the 8th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the C shape at the 3rd fret.
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 13 drop 2, 9 drop 3, 24 rootless 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.