Chord of the Day #4: F#11

In my freshman year at Cedarcrest High School in Duvall, WA I took the required word processing/IT class. This would have been 1998 or 1999. It was then that I got my first email address, and started wasting time on the Internet in earnest. I discovered a phenomenal Chord of the Week website that doesn't exist anymore. I may try to recreate some of those entries here, like the one for the B-7 chord in that Beck song Tropicalia. Another of the entries introduced me to this lovely thing, F#11:

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Theoretically speaking, this chord is missing one note: a 9th. Here are the generic formulae for the different "number" types of chords:

7th: root, third, fifth, seventh
9th: root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth
11th: root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh
13th: root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, thirteenth

Note that under this system, theoretical 13th chords are unplayable on the guitar because they require seven notes. But hey, an 11th chord only has six, so we can play those, right? Wrong. Cramming all six notes of a theoretical 11th chord into a single guitar voicing worth playing is no mean feat, and I've only discovered one voicing that does it. Taking that chord above, if you can manage to stretch your little finger to replace that doubled root on the fourth string with a ninth (G#), you'll get this F#11 voicing:

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This has everything. In fact, it's a perfect theoretical dominant 11th, with two minor changes: the guide tones, the third and seventh, have both been raised an octave. That's it. Also, if you want an F major 9 #11, what I would call a Lydian 11th, just drop the figure down one fret and let the two high strings ring out:

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These theoretical voicings are not tremendously useful on the guitar. In most cases, we strip a chord down to its elements, usually three, four, or five notes that convey all the necessary harmonic material. Even 9th, 11th, and 13th chords can be stripped down to three notes so long as no other changes (e.g. a #5 or ♭9) are being made.

Happy stretching.

Brandon