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This Issue: Extended Minor Chords

Essentially, these ‘deluxe’ versions of minor 7th chords can add a little class to any chord progression – maybe not in heavy rock, but even then, these added notes can inform your melodic choices when soloing over the heaviest of metal… This is an enormous and fascinating subject, but we’re taking it on a small chunk at a time, though many of these principles hold true in other musical contexts too, so take your time to fully absorb the info here and you’ll start noticing it in use in all sorts of contexts, be that vocal melody lines, solos or chord progressions.

Example 1

This E minor 9th chord is essentially an E minor 7th (containing the notes E, G, B, D) adding an F# from further up the scale. This is where the term ‘extended’ comes from. Even though the F# in this case is not the highest note, this unique combination of notes is known as E minor 9th – staple of many a jazz standard and rock ballad!

Example 2

E minor 11th also extends the chord by adding in extra notes from the scale. In this case, an A. It’s not the highest note in this voicing, but this is due to the limited amount of simultaneous notes available, and the amount of fingers to play them! The closely voiced G and A on the middle two strings give this a distinctive sound – more complex than the E minor 9th.

Example 3

This second version of E minor 11th juggles the order of notes to have the A on top. This gives a more ‘piano style’ voicing which sounds like a D major chord superimposed over an E minor – but that’s another article!

Example 4

Voiced in this position, A minor 9th makes use of the open 5th string, though just using the top four strings renders it movable to any key.The adjacent B and C on the 2nd and 3rd strings give a dissonance to what is still a very harmonious sounding chord overall.

Example 5

Shifting position and adding in a D on the 3rd string gives us A minor 11th. Sometimes these chords are mixed up with sus2, but these contain a minor 3rd (in this case C), and so this cannot be the case…

Example 6

Shifting position again, we have this second voicing of A minor 11th, with the 11th (D) on top at the 10th fret. This is a movable chord, loved by Eric Johnson and used extensively in the jazz repertoire. Like the earlier E minor 11th, this appears to superimpose one chord over another – look at that G major triad on the top three strings!