Dm9 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 Dm9 — rootless voicings
Dm9 is D, F, A, C and E — Dm7 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.
Dm9 notes and formula
| D | F | A | C | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — an m7’s job with more colour.
Also written Dmin9, D-9 or D minor 9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Dm9
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.
Dm9 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: F in the bass, A in the bass, C in the bass and E in the bass. The one to learn first is the E shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
5 of them sit on the top 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 100210 — no barre and 3 open strings. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. 4 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 12th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100210 | open position | F, 1st inversion | E | 3 open strings |
| 132231 | 1st fret | F, 1st inversion | F | all fretted |
| x5355x | 3rd fret | D, root position | E | barred |
| x57560 | 5th fret | D, root position | F | 1 open string |
| x77768 | 6th fret | E, 9th in the bass | C | barred |
| xx7968 | 6th fret | A, 2nd inversion | C | all fretted |
| 10-8-x-9-10-8 | 8th fret | D, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-8-10-9-10-10 | 8th fret | F, 1st inversion | D | barred |
| 10-12-10-10-10-12 | 10th fret | D, root position | E | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 12 drop 2, 8 drop 3 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Dm9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (G) and the 13 (B).
How to use Dm9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Dm9 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 Dm9 belongs to C major (the ii, the supertonic), D minor (the i, the tonic), F major (the vi, the submediant) and A minor (the iv, the subdominant).
What to play over Dm9
Every note of Dm9 is in D dorian and D natural minor.
Chords near Dm9
Change one note of Dm9 and you have Dm69 (the flat seventh becomes a sixth), Dm7 (drop the ninth), Dm11 (add the fourth), DmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), Dmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or D9 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Dm9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Dm9’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.