Bbm9 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
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About Bbm9 — drop 3 voicings
Bbm9 is Bb, Db, F, Ab and C — Bbm7 with the ninth stacked above it.
It sounds warm, and considerably richer than an m7. The standard voicing for a ii chord once the plain one has been played enough.
Bbm9 notes and formula
| Bb | Db | F | Ab | C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — an m7’s job with more colour.
Also written Bbmin9, Bb-9 or Bb minor 9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bbm9
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.
Bbm9 has 7 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from the 2nd fret up to the 9th — every inversion the chord has: Bb in the bass, Db in the bass, Ab in the bass and C in the bass. The one to learn first is the C shape at the 2nd fret.
4 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 xx3524 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Bbm9 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 4 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x33324 | 2nd fret | C, 9th in the bass | Ab | barred |
| xx3524 | 2nd fret | F, 2nd inversion | Ab | all fretted |
| 64x564 | 4th fret | Bb, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x46566 | 4th fret | Db, 1st inversion | Bb | barred |
| 686668 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| 9-11-10-10-11-9 | 9th fret | Db, 1st inversion | Db | all fretted |
| x-13-11-13-13-x | 11th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 10 drop 2 and 14 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Bbm9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Eb) and the 13 (G).
How to use Bbm9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bbm9 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 Bbm9 belongs to C# major (the vi, the submediant), F minor (the iv, the subdominant), Ab major (the ii, the supertonic) and Bb minor (the i, the tonic).
What to play over Bbm9
Every note of Bbm9 is in Bb dorian and Bb natural minor.
Chords near Bbm9
Change one note of Bbm9 and you have Bbm69 (the flat seventh becomes a sixth), Bbm7 (drop the ninth), Bbm11 (add the fourth), BbmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), Bbmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or Bb9 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Bbm9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Bbm9’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Sher Music, 1995). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.