Em11 is E, G, B, D, F# and A — with the eleventh added on top.
It sounds spacious and slightly unresolved. The eleventh is a whole step above the minor third, so unlike its major counterpart it fits without a fight.
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — it hangs rather than moves.
Also written Emin11, E-11 or E minor 11.
Modal tunes sit on one chord for bars at a time, and Em11 is their sound. The harmony stays put, so the voicing moves instead: the whole shape slides a half step and back.
Listen for: Every voice moves together, a half step up and back. The shape never changes.
Heard in“So What” (in a voicing without the ninth)
In which keys. Every note of Em11 belongs to D major, E minor, G major and B minor.
Every note of Em11 is in E natural minor and E dorian.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where Em11 sits in it. Every scale.
Change one note of Em11 and you have (drop the eleventh), (the flat seventh becomes the major seventh) or (drop the minor third).
Em11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor 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.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.