Emaj13 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Emaj13 — drop 2 voicings
Emaj13 is E, G#, B, D#, F# and C# — Emaj9 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.
Emaj13 notes and formula
| E | G# | B | D# | F# | C# |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Also written EM13, EΔ13 or E major 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Emaj13
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.
Emaj13 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: E in the bass, G# in the bass, D# in the bass and C# in the bass. The one to learn first is the D# shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 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 x76644 — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 5 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 021122 | open position | E, root position | F# | barred |
| x42244 | 2nd fret | C#, 13th in the bass | G# | barred |
| x76644 | 4th fret | E, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x74644 | 4th fret | E, root position | G# | barred |
| x77899 | 7th fret | E, root position | C# | all fretted |
| 12-11-11-11-12-11 | 11th fret | E, root position | D# | barred |
| 12-12-13-13-14-12 | 12th fret | E, root position | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 9 drop 3, 25 rootless and 4 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Emaj13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (A#).
How to use Emaj13
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Emaj13 is F#m7 to B7 — the ii and the V of E — and B7 shares its third and seventh with F#m7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Emaj13 belongs to C# minor (the ♭III), E major (the I, the tonic), Ab minor (the ♭VI) and B major (the IV, the subdominant).
What to play over Emaj13
Every note of Emaj13 is in E major and E lydian.
Chords near Emaj13
Change one note of Emaj13 and you have Emaj9 (drop the sixth), Emaj11 (the sixth becomes a fourth), E69 (drop the major seventh) or E13 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Emaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Emaj13’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.