This is a copy of the piece I did for the North American Guitar Companies monthly newsletter earlier this year….
E Major 13th:
A splendid ‘jazz’ voicing of a lovely open sounding chord, this is a particularly useful chord when determining the ‘balance’ of a guitars’ tone.
The open ‘E’ string allows the table of the guitar to resonate to its hearts content, and if you’re fingering the chord accurately, (i.e. just Index and middle fingers), the chord should allow you to hear the notes from the middle of the frequency range (from around 207Hz up to 622Hz)
A good guitar will allow this voicing to ‘sing out’.
Oh, and it’s quite cool to slide up and down the neck with the same pattern.
There’s a beautiful version of “Afro Blue” by Emily Remler, where she makes great use of this shape.