Cm9 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 Cm9 — uncommon 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.
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — an m7’s job with more colour.
Cm9 notes and formula
| C | Eb | G | Bb | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
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
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep Eb and Bb (they fix the quality) 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 Cm9 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (F) or the 13 (A).
All 9 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- x3133x, 1st fret, C, root position, top note D, barred
- x30343, open position, C, root position, top note G, barred
- x55546, 4th fret, D, 9th in the bass, top note Bb, barred
- xx5746, 4th fret, G, 2nd inversion, top note Bb, all fretted
- 86x786, 6th fret, C, root position, top note Bb, all fretted
- x68788, 6th fret, Eb, 1st inversion, top note C, barred
- 8-10-8-8-8-10, 8th fret, C, root position, top note D, barred
- 11-13-12-12-13-11, 11th fret, Eb, 1st inversion, top note Eb, all fretted
- x-15-13-15-15-15, 13th fret, C, root position, top note G, barred
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 natural minor and C dorian.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where Cm9 sits in it. Every scale.
Chords near Cm9
Change one note of Cm9 and you have Cm69 (the flat seventh becomes the sixth), Cm7 (drop the ninth), Cm11 (add the eleventh), CmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes the major seventh), Cmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or C9 (the minor third becomes the major third).
Cm9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor 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.