Abm69 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 Abm69 — drop 2 voicings
Abm69 is Ab, Cb, Eb, F and Bb — Abm6 with the ninth added as well.
It sounds cool and entirely at rest. No seventh, so nothing leans: a common last chord of a minor tune.
Abm69 notes and formula
| Ab | Cb | Eb | F | Bb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Also written Abm6/9, Abmin6/9 or Ab-6/9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Abm69
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.
Abm69 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, Cb 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 4233xx — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Abm69 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 5 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 11th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4233xx | 2nd fret | Ab, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x23344 | 2nd fret | Cb, 1st inversion | Ab | all fretted |
| 4x3446 | 3rd fret | Ab, root position | Bb | barred |
| 4x6466 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Bb | barred |
| xx6466 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Bb | barred |
| x66466 | 4th fret | Eb, 2nd inversion | Bb | barred |
| 766866 | 6th fret | Cb, 1st inversion | Bb | barred |
| x-11-9-10-11-x | 9th fret | Ab, root position | Bb | all fretted |
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 Abm69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Db).
How to use Abm69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Abm69 is Bbm7♭5 to Eb7♭9: the ii and the V of Ab minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Abm69 belongs to Eb minor (the iv, the subdominant) and F# major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Abm69
Every note of Abm69 is in Ab dorian and Ab melodic minor.
Chords near Abm69
Change one note of Abm69 and you have Abm6 (drop the ninth), Abm9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), AbmMaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Abmadd9 (drop the sixth) or Ab69 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Abm69 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Abm69’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.