Cm9 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 Cm9 — rootless 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
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.
Cm9 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: Eb 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 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, 8 drop 3 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.