E69 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 E69 — drop 2 voicings
E69 is E, G#, B, C# and F# — E6 with the ninth added as well.
It sounds wide and entirely at rest. The modern way to voice a tonic when a triad is too bare and a maj7 too pointed.
E69 notes and formula
| E | G# | B | C# | F# |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Tonic — it commits to nothing.
Also written E6/9, E6add9 or E six nine. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play E69
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.
E69 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: E in the bass, G# in the bass, C# in the bass and F# 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 x74654 — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. 1 of the 10 shapes here sits in open position. 9 of the 10 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 022122 | open position | E, root position | F# | barred |
| xx2122 | 1st fret | E, root position | F# | barred |
| x22122 | 1st fret | B, 2nd inversion | F# | barred |
| x44454 | 4th fret | C#, 6th in the bass | G# | barred |
| x74654 | 4th fret | E, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x76677 | 6th fret | E, root position | B | barred |
| x99999 | 9th fret | F#, 9th in the bass | C# | barred |
| 0-11-11-11-12-12 | 11th fret | E, root position | E | barred |
| 12-11-11-11-12-12 | 11th fret | E, root position | E | barred |
| x-x-14-13-14-14 | 13th fret | E, root position | F# | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 9 drop 3, 13 rootless and 4 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of E69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (A#).
How to use E69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on E69 is F#m7 to B7 — the ii and the V of E — and B7 shares its third and seventh with F#m7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of E69 belongs to C# minor (the ♭III), E major (the I), F# minor (the ♭VII), Ab minor (the ♭VI), A major (the V) and B major (the IV).
What to play over E69
E69 is every note of the E major pentatonic, and nothing else. It also sits inside E major, E lydian, E mixolydian and E lydian dominant.
Chords near E69
Change one note of E69 and you have Emaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Emaj13 (add the major seventh), Em69 (the major third becomes a minor third), Eadd9 (drop the sixth), E6 (drop the ninth) or E9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh).
E69 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On E69’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.