A13
- A1
- C♯3
- E5
- G♭7
- B2
- F♯6
A13 is A, C♯, E, G, B and F♯.
A13 has six notes, and the bass has four strings to play them on. The rest of this page shows how a hand fits one to the other.
On the staff
On a bass staff, A13 is written A, C♯, E, G, B and F♯.
The staff shows the notes one after the other, then together. Written this way the chord is in close position, which means each note sits as near to the one below it as the spelling allows. A guitar almost never plays a chord in close position.
A13 under a hand
Strummed from the lowest string to the highest, this grip sounds G, C♯, F♯ and A, which are the degrees ♭7 3 13 1 rather than the 1 3 5 ♭7 2 6 of the written chord. The lowest note is the ♭7 rather than the root, so this grip is in third inversion, written A13/G. It has the same notes as the root-position grip, but with G in the bass it sounds different. The 5 and 9 is left out altogether. A seventh chord gives up its fifth first, because the fifth adds the least to the chord's sound.
Strummed from the lowest string to the highest, this grip sounds F♯, A, C♯ and G, which are the degrees 13 1 3 ♭7 rather than the 1 3 5 ♭7 2 6 of the written chord. The lowest note is the 13 rather than the root, so this grip is in inversion 5, written A13/F♯. It has the same notes as the root-position grip, but with F♯ in the bass it sounds different. The 5 and 9 is left out altogether. A seventh chord gives up its fifth first, because the fifth adds the least to the chord's sound.
Two shapes for A13 on bass: A13/G and A13/F♯.
A13 has no root-position shape on bass, because there is no way to put the root below the other notes and still reach the whole chord. A chord with a note other than the root at the bottom is called an inversion, and every way of playing A13 here is one. That comes from how this instrument is tuned, not from the chord itself.
A, C♯, E, G, B and F♯ on the whole neck
This diagram marks every A, C♯, E, G, B and F♯ on the first fifteen frets of the bass.
Every grip above is a handful of the notes on this diagram, and none of them uses a note that is not shown here.
The words on this page were written with the help of AI and may contain a mistake. Its diagrams are drawn by Everyfret’s own software. How Everyfret is made