Cmaj13 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 Cmaj13 — rootless voicings
Cmaj13 is C, E, G, B, D and A — Cmaj9 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.
Cmaj13 notes and formula
| C | E | G | B | D | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Also written CM13, CΔ13 or C major 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Cmaj13
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.
Cmaj13 has 25 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: E in the bass, G in the bass, B in the bass, D in the bass and A in the bass. The one to learn first is the B shape at the 2nd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
9 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 x32201 — no barre and 1 open string. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 4 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32201 | open position | C, root position | F | 1 open string |
| x33455 | 3rd fret | C, root position | A | all fretted |
| 877787 | 7th fret | C, root position | B | barred |
| 8-8-9-9-10-8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-12-10-10-12-12 | 10th fret | A, 13th in the bass | E | barred |
| x-15-12-14-12-12 | 12th fret | C, root position | E | barred |
| x-15-14-14-12-12 | 12th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 13 drop 2, 9 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Cmaj13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (F#).
How to use Cmaj13
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Cmaj13 is Dm7 to G7 — the ii and the V of C — and G7 shares its third and seventh with Dm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Cmaj13 belongs to C major (the I, the tonic), E minor (the ♭VI), G major (the IV, the subdominant) and A minor (the ♭III).
What to play over Cmaj13
Every note of Cmaj13 is in C major and C lydian.
Chords near Cmaj13
Change one note of Cmaj13 and you have Cmaj9 (drop the sixth), Cmaj11 (the sixth becomes a fourth), C69 (drop the major seventh) or C13 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Cmaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Cmaj13’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.