Cadd9 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
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- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Cadd9 — drop 3 voicings
Cadd9 is C, E, G and D — C with the ninth added, and no seventh.
It sounds bright and ringing. No seventh at all: that is what “add” means, and it is why this sounds open where a maj9 sounds lush.
Cadd9 notes and formula
| C | E | G | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 9 |
Tonic — a triad with one colour on it.
Also written C(add9), Cadd2 or C add nine. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Cadd9
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.
Cadd9 has 10 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: C in the bass, E in the bass, G in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the E shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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 x30030 — no barre and 3 open strings. 2 of the 8 shapes here sit in open position. 3 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32030 | open position | C, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| x30030 | open position | C, root position | E | 3 open strings |
| x32x33 | 2nd fret | C, root position | G | barred |
| 870080 | 7th fret | C, root position | G | 3 open strings |
| 87x788 | 7th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-10-9-x-10 | 9th fret | C, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-15-14-12-15-12 | 12th fret | C, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-15-14-x-15-15 | 14th fret | C, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 15 drop 2 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
How to use Cadd9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Cadd9 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 Cadd9 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 Cadd9
Every note of Cadd9 is in C major pentatonic, C major, C lydian, C mixolydian and C lydian dominant.
Chords near Cadd9
Change one note of Cadd9 and you have C (drop the ninth), Csus2 (drop the major third), Csus2sus4 (the major third becomes a fourth), Cmaj7 (the ninth becomes a major seventh), Cmaj9 (add the major seventh) or Cmadd9 (the major third becomes a minor third).
Cadd9 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Cadd9’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.