F13 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 F13 — drop 2 voicings
F13 is F, A, C, Eb, G and D — F9 with the thirteenth added on top.
It sounds big and open. Six notes will not fit under four fingers: the fifth goes first, then the ninth, and the third, flat seventh and thirteenth stay.
F13 notes and formula
| F | A | C | Eb | G | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 | 13 |
Dominant — the full V chord.
Also written Fdom13 or F dominant 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play F13
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.
F13 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: F in the bass, A in the bass, Eb in the bass and D 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 x-8-7-8-10-10 — no barre. None of the shapes for F13 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 6 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 111233 | 1st fret | F, root position | G | barred |
| x-8-7-8-10-10 | 7th fret | F, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-8-7-8-8-10 | 7th fret | F, root position | D | barred |
| 8-8-8-8-10-10 | 8th fret | C, 2nd inversion | D | barred |
| 13-10-12-10-10-11 | 10th fret | F, root position | Eb | barred |
| 13-12-12-12-13-11 | 11th fret | F, root position | Eb | barred |
| 13-13-13-14-15-15 | 13th fret | F, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 9 drop 3, 25 rootless and 5 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of F13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (B).
How to use F13
F13 is the V of Bb, and that is where it goes if it goes anywhere: the third and the flat seventh are a tritone apart, and both resolve by a semitone into Bb.
Voice by voice, F13 → Bb. 2 voices move by a semitone, and 2 notes are common to both chords.
| In F13 | Moves | In Bb |
|---|---|---|
| F, the root | stays where it is | F, the fifth |
| A, the major third | rises a semitone | Bb, the root |
| C, the fifth | falls a whole tone | Bb, the root |
| Eb, the flat seventh | falls a semitone | D, the major third |
| G, the ninth | falls a whole tone | F, the fifth |
| D, the thirteenth | stays where it is | D, the major third |
In which keys. Every note of F13 belongs to G minor (the ♭VII) and Bb major (the V, the dominant).
What to play over F13
Every note of F13 is in F mixolydian and F lydian dominant.
Chords near F13
Change one note of F13 and you have Fmaj13 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), F69 (drop the flat seventh), F9 (drop the sixth) or F9#11 (the sixth becomes a flat fifth).
F13 is a dominant chord — root, major third, fifth, minor seventh. Dominant seventh chords on every root.
On F13’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.