Bb69 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 Bb69 — drop 2 voicings
Bb69 is Bb, D, F, G and C — Bb6 with the ninth added as well.
It sounds wide and entirely at rest. The modern way to voice a tonic when a triad is too bare and a maj7 too pointed.
Bb69 notes and formula
| Bb | D | F | G | C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Tonic — it commits to nothing.
Also written Bb6/9, Bb6add9 or Bb six nine. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bb69
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.
Bb69 has 15 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: Bb in the bass, D in the bass, G in the bass and C in the bass. The one to learn first is the D shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the top 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 x-13-10-12-11-10 — no barre. 1 of the 8 shapes here sits in open position. 7 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x10011 | open position | Bb, root position | F | barred |
| x33333 | 3rd fret | C, 9th in the bass | G | barred |
| 655566 | 5th fret | Bb, root position | Bb | barred |
| xx8788 | 7th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| x88788 | 7th fret | F, 2nd inversion | C | barred |
| x-10-10-10-11-10 | 10th fret | G, 6th in the bass | D | barred |
| x-13-10-12-11-10 | 10th fret | Bb, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-13-12-12-13-13 | 12th fret | Bb, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 5 shell, 10 drop 3, 15 rootless and 4 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bb69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (E).
How to use Bb69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bb69 is Cm7 to F7 — the ii and the V of Bb — and F7 shares its third and seventh with Cm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Bb69 belongs to C minor (the ♭VII), D minor (the ♭VI), Eb major (the V), F major (the IV), G minor (the ♭III) and Bb major (the I).
What to play over Bb69
Bb69 is every note of the Bb major pentatonic, and nothing else. It also sits inside Bb major, Bb lydian, Bb mixolydian and Bb lydian dominant.
Chords near Bb69
Change one note of Bb69 and you have Bbmaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Bbmaj13 (add the major seventh), Bbm69 (the major third becomes a minor third), Bbadd9 (drop the sixth), Bb6 (drop the ninth) or Bb9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh).
Bb69 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Bb69’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.