C#mMaj11 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About C#mMaj11 — drop 2 voicings
C#mMaj11 is C#, E, G#, B#, D# and F# — C#mMaj9 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.
C#mMaj11 notes and formula
| C# | E | G# | B# | D# | F# |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written C#mM11 or C#m(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play C#mMaj11
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.
C#mMaj11 has 12 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: C# in the bass, E in the bass, B# in the bass and F# in the bass. The one to learn first is the C# shape at the 4th fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 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 x42542 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for C#mMaj11 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 4 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x42542 | 2nd fret | C#, root position | F# | all fretted |
| x44554 | 4th fret | C#, root position | G# | barred |
| x44664 | 4th fret | C#, root position | G# | barred |
| 9-9-10-9-9-11 | 9th fret | C#, root position | D# | barred |
| x-x-11-11-13-12 | 11th fret | C#, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-11-11-11-13-12 | 11th fret | G#, 2nd inversion | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 8 drop 3 and 22 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of C#mMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (A#).
How to use C#mMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on C#mMaj11 is D#m7♭5 to G#7♭9: the ii and the V of C# minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over C#mMaj11
Every note of C#mMaj11 is in C# harmonic minor and C# melodic minor.
Chords near C#mMaj11
Change one note of C#mMaj11 and you have C#maj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), C#m11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or C#mMaj9 (drop the fourth).
C#mMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On C#mMaj11’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.