FmMaj11 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 FmMaj11 — rootless voicings
FmMaj11 is F, Ab, C, E, G and Bb — FmMaj9 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.
FmMaj11 notes and formula
| F | Ab | C | E | G | Bb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written FmM11 or Fm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play FmMaj11
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.
FmMaj11 has 24 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, C in the bass, E in the bass, G in the bass and Bb in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
8 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.
Start with xx3354 — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. None of the shapes for FmMaj11 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 112113 | 1st fret | F, root position | G | barred |
| xx3354 | 3rd fret | F, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x33354 | 3rd fret | C, 2nd inversion | Ab | barred |
| x86986 | 6th fret | F, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x88998 | 8th fret | F, root position | C | barred |
| x-8-8-10-10-8 | 8th fret | F, root position | C | barred |
| 13-13-14-13-13-15 | 13th fret | F, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 13 drop 2, 8 drop 3 and 1 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of FmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (D).
How to use FmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on FmMaj11 is Gm7♭5 to C7♭9: the ii and the V of F minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over FmMaj11
Every note of FmMaj11 is in F harmonic minor and F melodic minor.
Chords near FmMaj11
Change one note of FmMaj11 and you have Fmaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Fm11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or FmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
FmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On FmMaj11’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.