Baug9 guitar chord
The standard grips this chord is usually shown with.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Baug9 — 3rd inversion
Baug9 is B, D#, G, A and C# — B7 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.
Baug9 notes and formula
| B | D# | G | A | C# |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Altered dominant — dominant pull with a whole-tone colour.
Also written B9#5, B+9 or B9(#5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Baug9
Baug9 in 3rd inversion puts A in the bass instead of B, the 7th of the chord. The notes are the same; what changes is what the bass line does, which is most of why you would reach for it — it lets the lowest voice move by step where the root would have jumped.
2 of Baug9’s 7 common shapes do this: 545445, xx7889.
Start with xx7889 — no barre. None of the shapes for Baug9 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 4 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x21223 | 1st fret | B, root position | G | barred |
| 545445 | 4th fret | A, 3rd inversion | A | barred |
| 76768x | 6th fret | B, root position | G | all fretted |
| 7x7889 | 7th fret | B, root position | C# | all fretted |
| xx7889 | 7th fret | A, 3rd inversion | C# | all fretted |
| 11-12-11-12-12-11 | 11th fret | D#, 1st inversion | D# | barred |
| x-14-13-14-14-15 | 13th fret | B, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell and 14 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Baug9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (E#).
How to use Baug9
Baug9 is a dominant with its tension raised, so it still points at E — harder than a plain seventh does, because the altered tones sit a semitone from where they are going.
Voice by voice, Baug9 → E. 3 voices move by a semitone, and one note is common to both chords.
| In Baug9 | Moves | In E |
|---|---|---|
| B, the root | stays where it is | B, the fifth |
| D#, the major third | rises a semitone | E, the root |
| G, the sharp fifth | rises a semitone | G#, the major third |
| A, the flat seventh | falls a semitone | G#, the major third |
| C#, the ninth | falls a whole tone | B, the fifth |
What to play over Baug9
Every note of Baug9 is in B whole tone.
Chords near Baug9
Change one note of Baug9 and you have Balt (the ninth becomes a flat ninth), Baug7 (drop the ninth), B9 (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth) or B9b5 (the sharp fifth becomes a flat fifth).
Baug9 is an altered chord — a dominant seventh with its fifth or ninth moved. Altered dominant chords on every root.
On Baug9’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Sher Music, 1995). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.