Cm9 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
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Cm9 — drop 3 voicings
Cm9 is C, Eb, G, Bb and D — Cm7 with the ninth stacked above it.
It sounds warm, and considerably richer than an m7. The standard voicing for a ii chord once the plain one has been played enough.
Cm9 notes and formula
| C | Eb | G | Bb | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — an m7’s job with more colour.
Also written Cmin9, C-9 or C minor 9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Cm9
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.
Cm9 has 8 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: C in the bass, Eb in the bass, Bb in the bass and D in the bass. The one to learn first is the Bb shape at the nut.
4 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 xx5746 — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. 6 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x3133x | 1st fret | C, root position | D | barred |
| x30343 | open position | C, root position | G | barred |
| x55546 | 4th fret | D, 9th in the bass | Bb | barred |
| xx5746 | 4th fret | G, 2nd inversion | Bb | all fretted |
| 86x786 | 6th fret | C, root position | Bb | all fretted |
| x68788 | 6th fret | Eb, 1st inversion | C | barred |
| 8-10-8-8-8-10 | 8th fret | C, root position | D | barred |
| 11-13-12-12-13-11 | 11th fret | Eb, 1st inversion | Eb | all fretted |
| x-15-13-15-15-15 | 13th fret | C, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 13 drop 2, 14 rootless and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Cm9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (F) and the 13 (A).
How to use Cm9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Cm9 is Dm7♭5 to G7♭9: the ii and the V of C minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Cm9 belongs to C minor (the i, the tonic), Eb major (the vi, the submediant), G minor (the iv, the subdominant) and Bb major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Cm9
Every note of Cm9 is in C dorian and C natural minor.
Chords near Cm9
Change one note of Cm9 and you have Cm69 (the flat seventh becomes a sixth), Cm7 (drop the ninth), Cm11 (add the fourth), CmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), Cmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or C9 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Cm9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Cm9’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.