BmMaj9 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About BmMaj9 — drop 3 voicings
BmMaj9 is B, D, F#, A# and C# — BmMaj7 with the ninth added on top.
It sounds the same unease with more colour over it. The ninth softens the edge without resolving anything.
Minor tonic — melodic minor, extended.
BmMaj9 notes and formula
| B | D | F# | A# | C# |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 7 | 9 |
Also written BmM9, Bm(maj9) or B-Δ9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play BmMaj9
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
BmMaj9 has 6 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 2nd fret up to the 10th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D in the bass, A# in the bass and C# in the bass. The one to learn first is the A# shape at the 2nd fret.
4 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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.
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep D and A# (they fix the quality) and C# (what the symbol is about). Let F# and B go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play BmMaj9 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (E) or the 13 (G#).
All 7 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x20322, open position, B, root position, top note F#, barred
- 254322, 2nd fret, F#, 2nd inversion, top note F#, barred
- 75860x, 5th fret, B, root position, top note C#, 1 open string
- 75x676, 5th fret, B, root position, top note A#, all fretted
- 798779, 7th fret, B, root position, top note C#, barred
- 9-9-9-11-11-10, 9th fret, C#, 9th in the bass, top note D, barred
- x-14-12-15-14-x, 12th fret, B, root position, top note C#, all fretted
How to use BmMaj9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on BmMaj9 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.
What to play over BmMaj9
Every note of BmMaj9 is in B harmonic minor and B melodic minor.
Chords near BmMaj9
Change one note of BmMaj9 and you have Bmaj9 (the minor third becomes the major third), Bm69 (the major seventh becomes the sixth), Bm9 (the major seventh becomes the flat seventh), BmMaj7 (drop the ninth), BmMaj11 (add the eleventh) or Bmadd9 (drop the major seventh).
BmMaj9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor 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.