C69 guitar chord
Playable, correctly spelled, and not how the chord is normally voiced. Right now this is the shapes that put a ninth, eleventh or thirteenth below the root.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About C69 — uncommon 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.
Tonic — it commits to nothing.
C69 notes and formula
| C | E | G | A | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
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
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep E (it fixes the quality) and A and D (what the symbol is about). Let G and C go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play C69 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the #11 (F#).
All 9 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x32233, 2nd fret, C, root position, top note G, barred
- x30055, open position, C, root position, top note A, 2 open strings
- x55555, 5th fret, D, 9th in the bass, top note A, barred
- 877788, 7th fret, C, root position, top note C, barred
- x-x-10-9-10-10, 9th fret, C, root position, top note D, barred
- x-10-10-9-10-10, 9th fret, G, 2nd inversion, top note D, barred
- x-12-12-12-13-12, 12th fret, A, 6th in the bass, top note E, barred
- x-15-12-14-13-12, 12th fret, C, root position, top note E, all fretted
- x-15-14-14-15-15, 14th fret, C, root position, top note G, barred
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 mixolydian, C lydian and C lydian dominant.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where C69 sits in it. Every scale.
Chords near C69
Change one note of C69 and you have Cmaj9 (the sixth becomes the major seventh), Cmaj13 (add the major seventh), Cm69 (the major third becomes the minor third), Cadd9 (drop the sixth), C6 (drop the ninth) or C9 (the sixth becomes the flat seventh).
C69 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.