Dm9 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 Dm9 — uncommon 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.
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — an m7’s job with more colour.
Dm9 notes and formula
| D | F | A | C | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
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
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep F and C (they fix the quality) and E (what the symbol is about). Let A and D go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play Dm9 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (G) or the 13 (B).
All 9 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 100210, open position, F, 1st inversion, top note E, 3 open strings
- 132231, 1st fret, F, 1st inversion, top note F, all fretted
- x5355x, 3rd fret, D, root position, top note E, barred
- x57560, 5th fret, D, root position, top note F, 1 open string
- x77768, 6th fret, E, 9th in the bass, top note C, barred
- xx7968, 6th fret, A, 2nd inversion, top note C, all fretted
- 10-8-x-9-10-8, 8th fret, D, root position, top note C, all fretted
- x-8-10-9-10-10, 8th fret, F, 1st inversion, top note D, barred
- 10-12-10-10-10-12, 10th fret, D, root position, top note E, barred
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 natural minor and D dorian.
Each of those is a page: the scale across the neck, and the chords it harmonises into — which is where Dm9 sits in it. Every scale.
Chords near Dm9
Change one note of Dm9 and you have Dm69 (the flat seventh becomes the sixth), Dm7 (drop the ninth), Dm11 (add the eleventh), DmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes the major seventh), Dmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or D9 (the minor third becomes the major third).
Dm9 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.