GmMaj11 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 GmMaj11 — drop 2 voicings
GmMaj11 is G, Bb, D, F#, A and C — GmMaj9 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.
GmMaj11 notes and formula
| G | Bb | D | F# | A | C |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
Minor tonic — the melodic minor as far up as a guitar carries it.
Also written GmM11 or Gm(maj11). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play GmMaj11
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.
GmMaj11 has 12 of them, on the bottom four strings, the top four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 10th — every inversion the chord has: G in the bass, Bb in the bass, F# in the bass and C in the bass. The one to learn first is the G shape at the 3rd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 of them sit on the bottom 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 xx5576 — no barre and low, at the 5th fret. None of the shapes for GmMaj11 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 3rd fret. 4 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 3rd fret to the 12th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 334335 | 3rd fret | G, root position | A | barred |
| xx5576 | 5th fret | G, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x55576 | 5th fret | D, 2nd inversion | Bb | barred |
| x-10-8-11-10-8 | 8th fret | G, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-10-10-11-11-10 | 10th fret | G, root position | D | barred |
| x-10-10-12-12-10 | 10th fret | G, root position | D | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 9 drop 3, 25 rootless and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of GmMaj11, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 13 (E).
How to use GmMaj11
How you get to it. The turn that lands on GmMaj11 is Am7♭5 to D7♭9: the ii and the V of G minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
What to play over GmMaj11
Every note of GmMaj11 is in G harmonic minor and G melodic minor.
Chords near GmMaj11
Change one note of GmMaj11 and you have Gmaj11 (the minor third becomes a major third), Gm11 (the major seventh becomes a flat seventh) or GmMaj9 (drop the fourth).
GmMaj11 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On GmMaj11’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.