Abaug9 guitar chord
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About Abaug9 — uncommon voicings
Abaug9 is Ab, C, E, Gb and Bb — with the fifth raised and the natural ninth added on top.
It sounds bright, tense and slightly unreal. Raising the fifth leaves no semitone in the lower half of the chord, which is where the whole-tone flavour comes from.
Altered dominant — dominant pull with a whole-tone colour.
Also written Ab9#5, Ab+9 or Ab9(#5).
What these less common shapes are
How to use Abaug9
Abaug9 is a dominant with its tension raised, so it still points at — harder than a plain seventh does. A plain dominant has two voices a semitone from home; an altered one has four, because every altered tone is also sitting a semitone from a note of Db. More voices leaning the same way is all "more tension" means here.
What to play over Abaug9
Every note of Abaug9 is in Ab whole tone.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where Abaug9 sits in it. Every scale.
Chords near Abaug9
Change one note of Abaug9 and you have (the ninth becomes the sharp ninth), (drop the ninth), (the sharp fifth becomes the fifth) or (the sharp fifth becomes the flat fifth).
Abaug9 is an altered chord — a dominant seventh with its fifth or ninth moved. Altered dominant chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.