One of the Cool Chords – F#m11

When it comes time for me to play an F#m guitar chord in a song, the F#m11 or F#m7(11) that you are going to learn in this video guitar lesson is my “go to” chord.

Sure, I could play a boring old F#m barre chord…but where’s the fun in that 🙂 Instead you can use what I call one of the “cool chords” or the “money chords”. One of the guitar chords the pros use all the time.

• Got Strums to put with your new chord? Get em with my Rhythm Guitar Mastery Phase 1 course.

(Video Guitar Lesson)

 

F#m11 – F#m7(11) Guitar Chord Charts

Below are the 3 fingerings for the F#m11 chords that I demonstrate in the video guitar lesson.

What the heck is an F#m11 – F#m(11) Chord

F sharp minor 11 or F sharp minor 7 with a tension 11 is how you say it in English. Now I know for some of you that may not sound like English 🙂 And you will see the chord symbol written either as F#m11, or as F#m7(11)

But really just think of this as an F#m7 guitar chord with a little extra “spice” to it. What is sometimes referred to as a “tension”. That “tension” is the 11.

Without going into a full blown chord construction music theory lesson…here is a down and dirty explanation. Take an F# Major Scale, and give a number to each degree of the scale….all the way from F# up past the F# octave up to a B.

Then take the 1st 3rd 5th and 7th notes of the scale….but lower the 3rd and 7th notes by a half step. So you would say that the Minor 7 Chord has the chord functions of 1 b3 5 and b7. That’s “flat 3” and “flat 7”. You can really think about chord functions as the recipe or directions of how to alter the notes in a Major Scale to get different chords. Then the B note is the “11”. Which is really the same as the 4th degree of a Major Scale…but an octave higher.

But you don’t have to know all that music theory mumbo jumbo to just know that this chord can be substituted for just about any F#m chord. It’s just got more flavor to it than a basic F#m guitar chord.

F#m11 MP3 Jam Track

Here is an MP3 Jam Track you can download to give your new F# minor 11 chord some practice. The chord progression goes F#m11, E, Dsus2/F#, E. The Dsus2/F# is kind of a bonus “cool chord”.

(Right Click the link below and choose “Save As” or “Save Target As” or “Download Linked Files As”)

---

Have fun with your new F# minor 11 chord.