Bbm69 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 Bbm69 — drop 3 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.
Bbm69 notes and formula
| Bb | Db | F | G | C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
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
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.
Bbm69 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — 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 C shape at the 2nd fret.
5 of them sit on strings 5-3-2-1, 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 6455xx — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. None of the shapes for Bbm69 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 4th fret. 5 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 4th fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6455xx | 4th fret | Bb, root position | C | all fretted |
| x45566 | 4th fret | Db, 1st inversion | Bb | all fretted |
| 6x5668 | 5th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| 6x8688 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| xx8688 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| x88688 | 6th fret | F, 2nd inversion | C | barred |
| 9-8-8-10-8-8 | 8th fret | Db, 1st inversion | C | barred |
| x-13-11-12-13-x | 11th fret | Bb, root position | C | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 12 drop 2 and 14 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bbm69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Eb).
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 a flat seventh), BbmMaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Bbmadd9 (drop the sixth) or Bb69 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Bbm69 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Bbm69’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.