The standard grips this chord is usually shown with.
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.

| 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.
Bbm69 in root position puts Bb in the bass, which is the chord as it is spelled: the note it is named after underneath everything else.
5 of Bbm69’s 8 common shapes do this: 6455xx, 6x5668, 6x8688, xx8688, x-13-11-12-13-x.
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, 9 drop 3 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 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).
Every note of Bbm69 is in Bb dorian and Bb melodic minor.
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.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.