E11 guitar chord

9th in bass · F# in the bass
  • Tap a note to hear it
  • Arrows change position
  • Fingers, notes or intervals
  • Play the chord

About E11inversions voicings

E11 is E, B, D, F# and A with the eleventh added, and the third usually dropped.

It sounds suspended rather than tense. The eleventh sits a semitone above the major third, so the third is usually dropped; some shapes here keep it anyway.

Dominant — but effectively a sus chord with a ninth.

Also written E9sus4 or E dominant 11.

E11 inversions guitar chord diagram: E, B, D, F#, A, played 222234
E11 inversions, 222234 — the shape above, as a picture.

What an inversion is

How to use E11

1In place of the ii

V in A major

E11 has the notes of the ii over the V’s root, so it can take the ii’s bar: E11, then E9, then A. The eleventh gives way to the third, and the V resolves as usual.

Compare with

Listen for: The eleventh falls a half step to the third, then rises a half step into the root of the I.

In which keys. Every note of E11 belongs to D major, E minor, F# minor, G major, A major and B minor.

What to play over E11

Every note of E11 is in E natural minor, E dorian and E mixolydian.

Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where E11 sits in it. Every scale.

Chords near E11

Change one note of E11 and you have (drop the flat seventh), (the eleventh becomes the minor third), (add the minor third), (drop the ninth) or (the eleventh becomes the major third).

E11 is a dominant chord — root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. Dominant seventh chords on every root.

The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.

Midi Settings

7.5
Play Style
One pass of the pick from the lowest string up, everything left ringing.
Instrument
350
150

Style

Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.

Layout

Left Handed Mode