C69 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 C69 — drop 2 voicings
C69 is C, E, G, A and D — C6 with the ninth added as well.
It sounds wide and entirely at rest. The modern way to voice a tonic when a triad is too bare and a maj7 too pointed.
C69 notes and formula
| C | E | G | A | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Tonic — it commits to nothing.
Also written C6/9, C6add9 or C six nine. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play C69
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.
C69 has 15 of them, on the top four strings, the bottom four strings and the middle four strings, from open position up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: C in the bass, E in the bass, A in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the D shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the top 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.
Start with x30055 — no barre and 2 open strings. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. 7 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32233 | 2nd fret | C, root position | G | barred |
| x30055 | open position | C, root position | A | 2 open strings |
| x55555 | 5th fret | D, 9th in the bass | A | barred |
| 877788 | 7th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-10-9-10-10 | 9th fret | C, root position | D | barred |
| x-10-10-9-10-10 | 9th fret | G, 2nd inversion | D | barred |
| x-12-12-12-13-12 | 12th fret | A, 6th in the bass | E | barred |
| x-15-12-14-13-12 | 12th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-15-14-14-15-15 | 14th fret | C, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 10 drop 3, 15 rootless and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of C69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (F#).
How to use C69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on C69 is Dm7 to G7 — the ii and the V of C — and G7 shares its third and seventh with Dm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of C69 belongs to C major (the I), D minor (the ♭VII), E minor (the ♭VI), F major (the V), G major (the IV) and A minor (the ♭III).
What to play over C69
C69 is every note of the C major pentatonic, and nothing else. It also sits inside C major, C lydian, C mixolydian and C lydian dominant.
Chords near C69
Change one note of C69 and you have Cmaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Cmaj13 (add the major seventh), Cm69 (the major third becomes a minor third), Cadd9 (drop the sixth), C6 (drop the ninth) or C9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh).
C69 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On C69’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.