Bbm69 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 Bbm69 — drop 2 voicings
Bbm69 is Bb, Db, F, G and C — Bbm6 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.
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Bbm69 notes and formula
| Bb | Db | F | G | C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Also written Bbm6/9, Bbmin6/9 or Bb-6/9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bbm69
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.
Bbm69 has 12 of them, on the bottom four strings, the top four strings and the middle four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: Bb in the bass, Db in the bass, G in the bass and C in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the 4th fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 of them sit on the bottom 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.
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep Db (it fixes the quality) and G and C (what the symbol is about). Let F and Bb go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play Bbm69 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (Eb).
All 8 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 6455xx, 4th fret, Bb, root position, top note C, all fretted
- x45566, 4th fret, Db, 1st inversion, top note Bb, all fretted
- 6x5668, 5th fret, Bb, root position, top note C, barred
- 6x8688, 6th fret, Bb, root position, top note C, barred
- xx8688, 6th fret, Bb, root position, top note C, barred
- x88688, 6th fret, F, 2nd inversion, top note C, barred
- 9-8-8-10-8-8, 8th fret, Db, 1st inversion, top note C, barred
- x-13-11-12-13-x, 11th fret, Bb, root position, top note C, all fretted
How to use Bbm69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bbm69 is Cm7♭5 to F7♭9: the ii and the V of Bb minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Bbm69 belongs to F minor (the iv, the subdominant) and Ab major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Bbm69
Every note of Bbm69 is in Bb dorian and Bb melodic minor.
Chords near Bbm69
Change one note of Bbm69 and you have Bbm6 (drop the ninth), Bbm9 (the sixth becomes the flat seventh), BbmMaj9 (the sixth becomes the major seventh), Bbmadd9 (drop the sixth) or Bb69 (the minor third becomes the major third).
Bbm69 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.