COTD #9: B13 (five ways)

The formula for a dominant 13th chord is 1, 3, 5, ♭7, 9, 11, 13, which is not playable unless you have a 7-string (which Mick Thomson of Slipknot once called "gay." Do something what that information if you wish. Wait, actually don't.) Typically, we exclude the 5th, 9th, and 11th, leaving 1, 3, ♭7, 13, as in this standard voicing from any chord book:

B13

7X789X

This may be the only dominant 13th form some people know. I'll try to fix that. Keep the ♭7th and 13th degrees where they are, but play the 3rd down an octave on the A string and the root up an octave on the G string. This is the result:

B13

X6749X

Brutal. This is the standard drop-2 form of a first-inversion dominant 13th chord ("first-inversion" just means the third, D#, is in the bass rather than B."Drop-2" I plan to explain in detail later). The 5-fret stretch is enough to put most folks off it. If you're looking for a workaround, remember, the one note in this voicing that you don't need is the root. It's still a plain vanilla 13th chord even if you swap out the root for the 9th, 11th, or 5th. That's what we'll do, and in that order. First, the 9th substitution:

B13

X6769X

This is also a second-inversion AΔ7♭5, and a good choice if you want to play this chord without changing the sound much. Not so with the 11th substitution:

B13

X7789X

This is also an EΔ11, and a serious departure from the plain vanilla B13. You may wonder why I changed the bass note. Swapping the 11th for the 9th in the above voicing (i.e. X6799X) would create a ♭9 tension between the fifth and third strings. I tend to avoid those per Bret Wilmott's advice, but you need not. Anyway, I play the 11th on the fifth string and the 3rd (up an octave as a 10th) on the third string. 

I already covered this shape, but here's the fifth substitution:

B13

X9789X

This is the best substitution if you want the chord to be heard as a dominant thirteenth but are looking for something other than the root substitution.