So What Chord (Em7(add11)): how to play it on guitar

So What Chord (Em7(add11)): guitar chord

Play it on

Search the library

Famous chords4

Famous

Standard

Em7(add11) · Miles Davis and Bill Evans

Famous

Standard

Am(maj9)/C · Schoenberg

Famous

Standard

Star Wars, 1977 · John Williams · Holst chords · nearest shape for the hand

Famous

Standard

Vertigo, 1958 · Bernard Herrmann · Vertigo bichord · nearest shape for the hand

Famous

Em7(add11)

So What Chord Standard

5 strings

FamousSo What ChordSo What, 1959 · Miles Davis (voicing played by Bill Evans)

The head: the bass plays the tune and the piano and horns answer with two of these chords, E–A–D–G–B then the same shape a whole step lower, D–G–C–F–A (a half step higher in the bridge).

Three stacked fourths with a major third on top, so the chord has no clear major or minor third over its bass and floats rather than resolves. Bill Evans and the horns play it, and the same shape a step lower, as the two-chord answer to the bass line in Miles Davis's So What (1959). On guitar the shape falls naturally under the fingers, because it matches the way the lower five strings are tuned.

Also called So What voicing, Quartal chord, quartal, Miracle voicing, Miracle voicing (Frank Mantooth), quartal voicing, Em11 (as a symbol)

Sources: So What chord (Wikipedia) · So What (Miles Davis composition) (Wikipedia) · What is the So What chord (Jazz Guitar Licks) · The So What Chord: Bill Evans, Modal Jazz, and the Quartal Voicing (piano.org)

Chord clock

What’s in it

R E♭3 G5 B♭7 D11 A

About this shape

Lowest note: E2, the root
Highest note: B3, the 5th
Stretch: no stretch
Fingers: no fingers

Where it sits on the neck

Fingering not checked by a guitarist yet.

So What Chord (Em7(add11)): guitar chord

Famous chords4

More E chords on guitar

Minor seventh added eleventh chords in every key

Em7(add11) on other instruments

Also for guitar

So What Chord (Em7(add11)): guitar chord

Famous chords4←→ along the neck · ↑↓ previous or next result

More E chords on guitar

Minor seventh added eleventh chords in every key

Em7(add11) on other instruments

Also for guitar

Famous chords4