Emaj13 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 Emaj13 — rootless 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. Everything the major scale offers except the eleventh, which is left out because it fights the third.
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Emaj13 notes and formula
| E | G# | B | D# | F# | C# |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
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
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.
Emaj13 has 25 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: G# in the bass, B in the bass, D# in the bass, F# 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.
9 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.
Six notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep G# and D# (they fix the quality) and C# and F# (what the symbol is about). Let B and E go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play Emaj13 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the #11 (A#).
All 7 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 021122, open position, E, root position, top note F#, barred
- x42244, 2nd fret, C#, 13th in the bass, top note G#, barred
- x76644, 4th fret, E, root position, top note G#, all fretted
- x74644, 4th fret, E, root position, top note G#, barred
- x77899, 7th fret, E, root position, top note C#, all fretted
- 12-11-11-11-12-11, 11th fret, E, root position, top note D#, barred
- 12-12-13-13-14-12, 12th fret, E, root position, top note E, barred
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 thirteenth), Emaj11 (the thirteenth becomes the eleventh), E69 (drop the major seventh) or E13 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh).
Emaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major 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.