Dm69 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Dm69 — drop 2 voicings
Dm69 is D, F, A, B and E — Dm6 with the ninth added as well.
It sounds cool and entirely at rest. No seventh, so nothing leans: a common last chord of a minor tune.
Dm69 notes and formula
| D | F | A | B | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Also written Dm6/9, Dmin6/9 or D-6/9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Dm69
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
Dm69 has 12 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from open position up to the 10th — every inversion the chord has: D in the bass, F in the bass, B in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the D shape at the 3rd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 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 x53200 — no barre and 2 open strings. 2 of the 11 shapes here sit in open position. 7 of the 11 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x53200 | open position | D, root position | E | 2 open strings |
| x53450 | open position | D, root position | E | 1 open string |
| x53455 | 3rd fret | D, root position | A | barred |
| x70767 | 6th fret | E, 9th in the bass | B | barred |
| 10-8-9-9-x-x | 8th fret | D, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-8-9-9-10-10 | 8th fret | F, 1st inversion | D | all fretted |
| 10-x-9-10-10-12 | 9th fret | D, root position | E | barred |
| 10-x-12-10-12-12 | 10th fret | D, root position | E | barred |
| x-x-12-10-12-12 | 10th fret | D, root position | E | barred |
| x-12-12-10-12-12 | 10th fret | A, 2nd inversion | E | barred |
| 13-12-12-14-12-12 | 12th fret | F, 1st inversion | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 8 drop 3, 13 rootless and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Dm69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (G).
How to use Dm69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Dm69 is Em7♭5 to A7♭9: the ii and the V of D minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Dm69 belongs to C major (the ii, the supertonic) and A minor (the iv, the subdominant).
What to play over Dm69
Every note of Dm69 is in D dorian and D melodic minor.
Chords near Dm69
Change one note of Dm69 and you have Dm6 (drop the ninth), Dm9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), DmMaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Dmadd9 (drop the sixth) or D69 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Dm69 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Dm69’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Piano Book (Sher Music, 1989). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.