Bm69 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 Bm69 — drop 2 voicings
Bm69 is B, D, F#, G# and C# — Bm6 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.
Bm69 notes and formula
| B | D | F# | G# | C# |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Also written Bm6/9, Bmin6/9 or B-6/9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bm69
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.
Bm69 has 13 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D in the bass, G# in the bass and C# in the bass. The one to learn first is the B 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 7566xx — no barre and low, at the 5th fret. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. 6 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x20122 | open position | B, root position | F# | barred |
| 7566xx | 5th fret | B, root position | C# | all fretted |
| x56677 | 5th fret | D, 1st inversion | B | all fretted |
| 7x6779 | 6th fret | B, root position | C# | barred |
| 7x9799 | 7th fret | B, root position | C# | barred |
| xx9799 | 7th fret | B, root position | C# | barred |
| x99799 | 7th fret | F#, 2nd inversion | C# | barred |
| 10-9-9-11-9-9 | 9th fret | D, 1st inversion | C# | barred |
| x-14-12-13-14-x | 12th fret | B, root position | C# | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 8 drop 3, 13 rootless and 5 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bm69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (E).
How to use Bm69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bm69 is C#m7♭5 to F#7♭9: the ii and the V of B minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Bm69 belongs to F# minor (the iv, the subdominant) and A major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Bm69
Every note of Bm69 is in B dorian and B melodic minor.
Chords near Bm69
Change one note of Bm69 and you have Bm6 (drop the ninth), Bm9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), BmMaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Bmadd9 (drop the sixth) or B69 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Bm69 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Bm69’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.