Caug9 guitar chord
The root left to the bass player. Frees a finger for a tension.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Caug9 — rootless voicings
Caug9 is C, E, G#, Bb and D — C7 with the fifth raised and the natural ninth added on top.
It sounds bright, tense and slightly unreal. Raising the fifth leaves no semitone in the lower half of the chord, which is where the whole-tone flavour comes from.
Caug9 notes and formula
| C | E | G# | Bb | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Altered dominant — dominant pull with a whole-tone colour.
Also written C9#5, C+9 or C9(#5). The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Caug9
Leave the root to the bass player. In a band nobody misses it, and the ear supplies it from the guide tones anyway.
The finger it frees goes to a tension, which is why these sound richer than the shape they came from rather than thinner.
Caug9 has 14 of them, on the middle four strings, the top four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: E in the bass, G# in the bass, Bb in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the middle 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 x30354 — no barre and 1 open string. 1 of the 7 shapes here sits in open position. 3 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x32334 | 2nd fret | C, root position | G# | barred |
| x30354 | open position | C, root position | G# | 1 open string |
| 656556 | 5th fret | Bb, 3rd inversion | Bb | barred |
| 87879x | 7th fret | C, root position | G# | all fretted |
| 8-x-8-9-9-10 | 8th fret | C, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-x-8-9-9-10 | 8th fret | Bb, 3rd inversion | D | all fretted |
| 12-13-12-13-13-12 | 12th fret | E, 1st inversion | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell and 1 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Caug9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (F#).
How to use Caug9
Caug9 is a dominant with its tension raised, so it still points at F — harder than a plain seventh does, because the altered tones sit a semitone from where they are going.
Voice by voice, Caug9 → F. 3 voices move by a semitone, and one note is common to both chords.
| In Caug9 | Moves | In F |
|---|---|---|
| C, the root | stays where it is | C, the fifth |
| E, the major third | rises a semitone | F, the root |
| G#, the sharp fifth | rises a semitone | A, the major third |
| Bb, the flat seventh | falls a semitone | A, the major third |
| D, the ninth | falls a whole tone | C, the fifth |
What to play over Caug9
Every note of Caug9 is in C whole tone.
Chords near Caug9
Change one note of Caug9 and you have Calt (the ninth becomes a flat ninth), Caug7 (drop the ninth), C9 (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth) or C9b5 (the sharp fifth becomes a flat fifth).
Caug9 is an altered chord — a dominant seventh with its fifth or ninth moved. Altered dominant chords on every root.
On Caug9’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.