In music or music theory an eleventh play is the note eleven scale degrees from the root of a chord and also the interval between the root and the eleventh. The interval can be also described as a compound fourth, spanning an octave plus a fourth.
Since there are only seven degrees in a diatonic scale the eleventh degree is the same as the subdominant.
The eleventh is considered highly dissonant with the third.
A perfect eleventh is an eleventh which spans exactly 17 semitones. It can be also described as a compound perfect fourth, spanning an octave plus a perfect fourth.
Famous quotes containing the word eleventh:
“The eleventh day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Eleven ladies dancing,”
—Unknown. The Twelve Days of Christmas (l. 76–78)
“I was thinking of a son.
The womb is not a clock
nor a bell tolling,
but in the eleventh month of its life
I feel the November
of the body as well as of the calendar.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)