EbmMaj11 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 EbmMaj11 — drop 2 voicings
EbmMaj11 is Eb, Gb, Bb, D, F and Ab — EbmMaj9 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.
EbmMaj11 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | D | F | Ab |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written EbmM11 or Ebm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play EbmMaj11
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.
EbmMaj11 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Eb in the bass, Gb in the bass, D in the bass and Ab in the bass. The one to learn first is the Eb 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 xx1132 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for EbmMaj11 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 5 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx1132 | 1st fret | Eb, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| x11132 | 1st fret | Bb, 2nd inversion | Gb | barred |
| x64764 | 4th fret | Eb, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x66776 | 6th fret | Eb, root position | Bb | barred |
| x66886 | 6th fret | Eb, root position | Bb | barred |
| 11-11-12-11-11-13 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | F | barred |
| x-13-13-13-15-14 | 13th fret | Bb, 2nd inversion | Gb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 9 drop 3 and 26 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of EbmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (C).
How to use EbmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on EbmMaj11 is Fm7♭5 to Bb7♭9: the ii and the V of Eb minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over EbmMaj11
Every note of EbmMaj11 is in Eb harmonic minor and Eb melodic minor.
Chords near EbmMaj11
Change one note of EbmMaj11 and you have Ebmaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Ebm11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or EbmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
EbmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On EbmMaj11’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.