How to use Sharp-11 Chords

Raise it a half step and F becomes F#. That's your sharp-11.

If counting to eleven feels like too much work mid-tune, the 11 is the same note as the 4. Find the 4th, raise it, and you're there.

Why isn't it just called a sharp-4? #

This trips up almost everyone, and the answer is a notation convention rather than any difference in sound.

Any chord number larger than 7 implies you're extending a 7th chord. Anything smaller than 7 only extends the triad. So C11 means a C7 with an 11 added, while C(add4) means a C triad with a 4th added and no 7th anywhere in it. Different chords, even though 4 and 11 are the same pitch.

The number is doing real work, then: it tells you the 7th is in there.

Thinking of the 11 as the 4 while you're learning the shapes is still a perfectly good crutch. Use it.

What's the difference between a sharp-11 and a flat-5? #

In C the sharp-11 is F# and the flat-5 is Gb. Same key on the piano. So are they the same chord?

Technically no, and the distinction is what happens to the natural 5th. A sharp-11 keeps the natural 5 and adds the raised 11 above it. A flat-5 replaces the natural 5 outright.

Both function as dominant chords pulling back to the tonic. The flat-5 arguably pulls a little harder, since its 3, b5 and b7 form a diminished triad, which is slightly less stable than the sharp-11 version.

In practice players use them interchangeably all the time and we're splitting hairs. There is a real-world wrinkle here worth knowing about, and it's in the nuances section below.

Where do you actually hear sharp-11 chords? #

When you're reading a lead sheet, the sharp-11 is usually left to your discretion. Any major or dominant chord can take one if you like the color, so it doesn't get written down much. When it does get notated, it's usually because the melody itself contains that note.

Take the "A" Train is the classic case. The melody sits on a G# over the D7 in the third and fourth bars, and that G# is the sharp-11.

The Girl from Ipanema does it twice in a row: a G# as the sharp-11 of D7, then an F# as the sharp-11 of C7.

Occasionally you'll see one written when it isn't the melody note at all, usually as a nod to a specific recording where the pianist voiced it that way.

How do you use the sharp-11 on a dominant chord? #

This is by far the most common use. Inside a normal cadence the sharp-11 of the V chord sits a half step above the root of the I chord, so it resolves downward into the tonic with a satisfying pull. It works in both major and minor keys.

Which dominant chords does it work best on? #

One rule of thumb ties everything below together: the sharp-11 is especially at home on dominant chords that don't resolve down a fifth.

A garden-variety V7 going down a fifth to I will happily take a sharp-11, as the cadence example above shows. But dominants that resolve down a half step, or up a whole step, are where the sharp-11 stops being an optional color and becomes the natural choice. Two situations cover most of these.

Tritone substitutions #

When a dominant chord substitutes for another a tritone away, the sharp-11 of the substitute is the root of the original. The alteration spells out the harmony it's replacing, which is why it sounds grounded rather than outside.

Look at the last chord of this excerpt from the B section of George Shearing's Lullaby of Birdland

Backdoor dominants #

A backdoor dominant is a bVII7 resolving up a whole step to the I chord: Bb7 going to Cmaj7 instead of the expected G7. It's borrowed from the parallel minor and it shows up constantly in standards.

The sharp-11 of that Bb7 is E natural, which is the 3rd of the Cmaj7 you're heading toward. The alteration announces the destination chord before you get there. That's why it fits so comfortably and why a lot of players voice backdoor dominants this way without thinking about it.

• Tadd Dameron's Ladybird is the textbook example, with Fm7 | Bb7 | Cmaj7 right in the opening phrase.

Why does the sharp-11 sound the way it does? #

The sharp-11 is the same note as the raised 4th of the Lydian mode. Play a major chord with a sharp-11 and you're hearing Lydian in miniature, with that bright, lifted quality the mode is known for.

For dominant chords there's a second explanation that's more useful. The scale containing the sharp-11 is Lydian dominant, and it's the fourth mode of melodic minor. C Lydian dominant (C D E F# G A Bb) is G melodic minor starting on C. If you already know your melodic minor modes, that's a shortcut into the whole sound, and it explains why the sharp-11 blends so smoothly with the 9 and 13 when other alterations fight with them.

How do you voice a sharp-11 chord? #

Here are conventional ways to voice a dominant chord with the sharp-11:

Notice what's usually missing. The natural 5th is gone. The 3rd and 7th are the notes that define a chord's quality, so the 5th is the first one to go when you need a finger for something more interesting. Dropping it makes room for the sharp-11 and gets you that floating character without muddying the middle of the voicing.

This next one is less conventional but a personal favorite. It's quartal in feel, with the sharp-11 on the bottom and the root in the middle, which gives it a faintly diminished flavor:

Any of these work for major chords too. Just raise the flat-7 back up to a natural 7.

Is there a shortcut for playing sharp-11 chords in every key? #

Yes, and it's the most useful thing in this article.

1. Play the chord shell in your left hand.
2. Play a major triad a whole step above the root in your right hand.

For a C7#11, that's C in the left hand and a D triad in the right. The D triad hands you the 9, the sharp-11 and the 13 all at once.

Try different inversions of that upper triad to find the voicing that sits best under the melody:

Note: The same trick works on major chords.

What scales work for soloing over a sharp-11 chord? #

Over a dominant sharp-11 you have options:

Lydian dominant is the most direct fit, since it contains the chord and nothing that fights it. The blues scale gets you there almost by accident, because the blue note is the sharp-11.

Over a major sharp-11, the Lydian scale is the standard choice: C D E F# G A B.

A few special cases worth knowing #

Everything above is enough to start using these chords today. This section is where it gets interesting.

Why do fake books write "b5" when they mean "#11"? #

Constantly, and it's mostly sloppiness that got copied forward for decades. By the strict convention a 7#11 keeps its natural 5 and a 7b5 doesn't have one, but plenty of published charts use b5 for both. Treat a written b5 as a suggestion rather than an instruction and let your ear and the melody decide whether the natural 5 belongs.

Can you combine the sharp-11 with other alterations? #

You can, but it's usually happiest on its own. Stacking it with a flat-9, sharp-9 or flat-13 doesn't produce anything harmful, but the overtones get crowded and the sharp-11 loses the crispness that made you want it.

If you do combine, the flat-13 is the friendlier partner, since it doesn't sit right next to the sharp-11.

What about a minor 7 sharp-11? #

You almost never see it. The reason is probably that a minor 7 with a raised 11 is awfully close to a minor 7 flat-5, the half-diminished chord, and that name and function already occupy the territory.

Jazz being jazz, someone has surely used one prominently. But it isn't a sound you need to go hunting for.

When does the sharp-11 stop being a color and start being the harmony? #

In bebop the sharp-11 is decoration on a functioning dominant. In modal playing from the 1960s onward the Lydian sound became structural, the point of the chord rather than an ornament on it. George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept was a big part of why, and the difference is worth knowing when you're deciding how long to let that note ring.

Does the sharp-11 work on a minor-key V chord? #

Less well. In minor, the V chord usually wants a flat-9 or flat-13, alterations that point toward the minor tonic. The sharp-11 has a brightness that can pull against a minor resolution. It isn't a rule, but it's a reason the chord comes up less often there.

How to practice sharp-11 chords this week #

Fifteen minutes a day, three steps.

1. Hear it first. Play a plain C7, then add the F# on top. Go back and forth five or six times, then sing the F#. You're training your ear to recognize the color before you have to find it under pressure.
2. Drill the shortcut. Play ii-V-I in C, voicing the V with the upper-structure triad (D triad over the C7 shell). Move it around the circle of fourths through all twelve keys. The point is to stop calculating and start grabbing it.
3. Put it in a tune. Take a standard you already know, find the dominant chords that don't resolve down a fifth, and voice those with the sharp-11. Ladybird is a good first candidate.

If you only do one of these, do the second. The upper-structure triad is what gets this out of your head and into your hands.

Where to go next #

The sharp-11 is one alteration among several. Once it's in your hands, the natural next steps are altered dominant chords, the flat-9, sharp-9 and flat-13 that the sharp-11 mostly prefers to avoid, and the broader world of dominant chord voicings.

If the melodic minor connection caught your interest, that's a whole system worth its own study.