EbmMaj11 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 EbmMaj11 — rootless voicings
EbmMaj11 is Eb, Gb, Bb, D, F and Ab — EbmMaj9 with the eleventh added on top.
It sounds dense and unresolved. The melodic minor tonic with most of the scale showing — more a texture than a chord to comp on.
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
EbmMaj11 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | D | F | Ab |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
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
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.
EbmMaj11 has 26 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: Gb in the bass, Bb in the bass, D in the bass, F in the bass and Ab in the bass. The one to learn first is the F shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
9 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.
Six notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep Gb and D (they fix the quality) and Ab and F (what the symbol is about). Let Bb and Eb go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play EbmMaj11 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 13 (C).
All 7 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- xx1132, 1st fret, Eb, root position, top note Gb, all fretted
- x11132, 1st fret, Bb, 2nd inversion, top note Gb, barred
- x64764, 4th fret, Eb, root position, top note Ab, all fretted
- x66776, 6th fret, Eb, root position, top note Bb, barred
- x66886, 6th fret, Eb, root position, top note Bb, barred
- 11-11-12-11-11-13, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
- x-13-13-13-15-14, 13th fret, Bb, 2nd inversion, top note Gb, barred
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 the major third), Ebm11 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh) or EbmMaj9 (drop the eleventh).
EbmMaj11 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.