Ab69 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Ab69 — drop 2 voicings
Ab69 is Ab, C, Eb, F and Bb — Ab6 with the ninth added as well.
It sounds wide and entirely at rest. The modern way to voice a tonic when a triad is too bare and a maj7 too pointed.
Ab69 notes and formula
| Ab | C | Eb | F | Bb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Tonic — it commits to nothing.
Also written Ab6/9, Ab6add9 or Ab six nine. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ab69
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
Ab69 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, C in the bass, F in the bass and Bb in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with x-11-8-10-9-8 — no barre. None of the shapes for Ab69 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 6 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 11th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x11111 | 1st fret | Bb, 9th in the bass | F | barred |
| 433344 | 3rd fret | Ab, root position | Ab | barred |
| xx6566 | 5th fret | Ab, root position | Bb | barred |
| x66566 | 5th fret | Eb, 2nd inversion | Bb | barred |
| x88898 | 8th fret | F, 6th in the bass | C | barred |
| x-11-8-10-9-8 | 8th fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-11-10-10-11-11 | 10th fret | Ab, root position | Eb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 9 drop 3 and 13 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ab69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (D).
How to use Ab69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ab69 is Bbm7 to Eb7 — the ii and the V of Ab — and Eb7 shares its third and seventh with Bbm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Ab69 belongs to C minor (the ♭VI), C# major (the V), Eb major (the IV), F minor (the ♭III), Ab major (the I) and Bb minor (the ♭VII).
What to play over Ab69
Ab69 is every note of the Ab major pentatonic, and nothing else. It also sits inside Ab major, Ab lydian, Ab mixolydian and Ab lydian dominant.
Chords near Ab69
Change one note of Ab69 and you have Abmaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Abmaj13 (add the major seventh), Abm69 (the major third becomes a minor third), Abadd9 (drop the sixth), Ab6 (drop the ninth) or Ab9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh).
Ab69 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Ab69’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Piano Book (Sher Music, 1989). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.