Dominant Chords – 13
Dominant 13 Chord
The dom 13 chord is simply the dom 11 chord with the 13th note added.
Let’s use the C dom chord to show this:
C11 (C dom 11)
C13 (C dom 13)
Dom 13 Chord Formula:
The dom 13 chord formula is 1-3-5-b7-9-11-13 (i.e. the Root,3rd,5th,b7th,9th,11th and 13th notes).
Important note:
For guitarists especially; extended chords can be more difficult to play as you only have a finite number of fingers and options to position them on the fretboard.
We recommend that you play dom 13 chords in root position only
(i.e. the root note being the lowest note in the chord).
You can use MusicWheels™ to discover all the other dominant 13 chords and their notes.
Guitar Diagrams
Dom 13 Chords
Extended chords obviously contain more notes than triad chords.
It is also common practice to leave out some of the notes. If you wish to learn more about this, there are many advanced music theory sites to explore on the internet.
Here, we are only focusing on examples that are relatively easy to play and are moveable (generic) across the fretboard.
The diagram below shows 2 examples of the G13 (dom13) chord plus the generic dom13 shapes.
The blue note is the root note of the chord, for example:
– if you wish to play the C13 chord then the blue root note will be the note of C,
– if you wish to play the E13 chord then the blue root note will be the note of E, and so on.
Keyboard Diagrams
