About Bbmadd9 — drop 3 voicings
Bbmadd9 is Bb, Db, F and C — Bbm with the ninth added, and no seventh.
It sounds sharp-edged. The ninth grinding a whole step under the minor third is the edge an m9 softens.
Bbmadd9 notes and formula
| Bb | Db | F | C |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 9 |
Minor tonic — a triad with one colour on it.
Also written Bbm(add9), Bbmin(add9) or Bb-add9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bbmadd9
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.
Bbmadd9 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Bb in the bass, Db in the bass, F in the bass and C in the bass. The one to learn first is the C shape at the nut.
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 x4331x — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Bbmadd9 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 2 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x4331x | 1st fret | Db, 1st inversion | C | all fretted |
| 64x56x | 4th fret | Bb, root position | F | all fretted |
| 688668 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | C | barred |
| xx8668 | 6th fret | Bb, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-x-11-10-11-8 | 8th fret | Db, 1st inversion | C | all fretted |
| x-13-11-10-13-x | 10th fret | Bb, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-13-11-x-13-13 | 11th fret | Bb, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 13 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
How to use Bbmadd9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bbmadd9 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 Bbmadd9 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 Bbmadd9
Every note of Bbmadd9 is in Bb dorian, Bb natural minor, Bb harmonic minor and Bb melodic minor.
Chords near Bbmadd9
Change one note of Bbmadd9 and you have Bbm (drop the ninth), Bbsus2 (drop the minor third), Bbsus2sus4 (the minor third becomes a fourth), Bbm6 (the ninth becomes a sixth), Bbm69 (add the sixth) or Bbm7 (the ninth becomes a flat seventh).
Bbmadd9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Bbmadd9’s sound and use this page follows Robert Rawlins & Nor Eddine Bahha, Jazzology (Hal Leonard, 2005). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.