A practical way to hear Ab11 is as held over the original root. The upper shape supplies the flat seventh, ninth, and : Ab, Eb, Gb, Bb and Db.
Because that upper shape omits the dominant’s major third, the chord remains suspended. This bass-plus-shape sound is used mainly as V.
Also written Ab9sus4 or Ab dominant 11.
Stack the four notes closely, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. It typically lands on four adjacent strings: the guitar’s workhorse voicing.
That result, 5–R–3–7, is the shape usually meant by drop 2. Named by its bass note, as the inversions are here, it is the 2nd inversion.
Ab11 has the notes of the ii over the V’s root, so it can take the ii’s bar: Ab11, then Ab9, then Db. The eleventh gives way to the third, and the V resolves as usual.
Listen for: The eleventh falls a half step to the third, then rises a half step into the root of the I.
In which keys. Every note of Ab11 belongs to C# major, Eb minor, F# major, Ab minor, Bb minor and B major.
Contains Ab11 and adds major third and thirteenth.
Contains Ab11 and adds minor third and flat thirteenth.
Contains Ab11 and adds minor third and thirteenth.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.