Gmaj13 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 Gmaj13 — drop 2 voicings
Gmaj13 is G, B, D, F#, A and E — Gmaj9 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.
Gmaj13 notes and formula
| G | B | D | F# | A | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 13 |
Tonic — the major sound with most of the scale showing.
Also written GM13, GΔ13 or G major 13. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Gmaj13
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.
Gmaj13 has 14 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: G in the bass, B in the bass, F# in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the E shape at the 2nd fret, 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-10-9-9-7-7 — no barre. None of the shapes for Gmaj13 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 5 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 322232 | 2nd fret | G, root position | F# | barred |
| 334453 | 3rd fret | G, root position | G | barred |
| x75577 | 5th fret | E, 13th in the bass | B | barred |
| x-10-9-9-7-7 | 7th fret | G, root position | B | all fretted |
| x-10-7-9-7-7 | 7th fret | G, root position | B | barred |
| x-10-10-11-12-12 | 10th fret | G, root position | E | all fretted |
| 15-14-14-14-15-14 | 14th fret | G, root position | F# | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 2 shell, 9 drop 3, 24 rootless and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Gmaj13, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (C#).
How to use Gmaj13
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Gmaj13 is Am7 to D7 — the ii and the V of G — and D7 shares its third and seventh with Am7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Gmaj13 belongs to D major (the IV, the subdominant), E minor (the ♭III), G major (the I, the tonic) and B minor (the ♭VI).
What to play over Gmaj13
Every note of Gmaj13 is in G major and G lydian.
Chords near Gmaj13
Change one note of Gmaj13 and you have Gmaj9 (drop the sixth), Gmaj11 (the sixth becomes a fourth), G69 (drop the major seventh) or G13 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh).
Gmaj13 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Gmaj13’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.