Fmaj13 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 Fmaj13 — drop 2 voicings
Fmaj13 is F, A, C, E, G and D — Fmaj9 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.
Fmaj13 notes and formula
| F | A | C | E | G | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Also written FM13, FΔ13 or F major 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Fmaj13
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.
Fmaj13 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, E in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the E 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 100010 — no barre and 4 open strings. 2 of the 8 shapes here sit in open position. 4 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100010 | open position | F, root position | E | 4 open strings |
| 112231 | 1st fret | F, root position | F | barred |
| xx3230 | open position | F, root position | E | 1 open string |
| x53355 | 3rd fret | D, 13th in the bass | A | barred |
| x87755 | 5th fret | F, root position | A | all fretted |
| x85755 | 5th fret | F, root position | A | barred |
| x-8-8-9-10-10 | 8th fret | F, root position | D | all fretted |
| 13-12-12-12-13-12 | 12th fret | F, root position | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 9 drop 3, 26 rootless and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Fmaj13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (B).
How to use Fmaj13
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Fmaj13 is Gm7 to C7 — the ii and the V of F — and C7 shares its third and seventh with Gm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Fmaj13 belongs to C major (the IV, the subdominant), D minor (the ♭III), F major (the I, the tonic) and A minor (the ♭VI).
What to play over Fmaj13
Every note of Fmaj13 is in F major and F lydian.
Chords near Fmaj13
Change one note of Fmaj13 and you have Fmaj9 (drop the sixth), Fmaj11 (the sixth becomes a fourth), F69 (drop the major seventh) or F13 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Fmaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Fmaj13’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.