Ebm69 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 Ebm69 — drop 2 voicings
Ebm69 is Eb, Gb, Bb, C and F — Ebm6 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.
Ebm69 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | C | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Also written Ebm6/9, Ebmin6/9 or Eb-6/9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebm69
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.
Ebm69 has 11 of them, on the middle four strings, the bottom four strings and the top four strings, from the 2nd fret up to the 11th — every inversion the chord has: Eb in the bass, Gb in the bass, C in the bass and F in the bass. The one to learn first is the Eb shape at the 4th fret, which is the easiest grip here.
4 of them sit on the bottom 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 x6456x — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. None of the shapes for Ebm69 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 6 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 211311 | 1st fret | Gb, 1st inversion | F | barred |
| x6456x | 4th fret | Eb, root position | F | all fretted |
| 11-9-10-10-x-x | 9th fret | Eb, root position | F | all fretted |
| x-9-10-10-11-11 | 9th fret | Gb, 1st inversion | Eb | all fretted |
| 11-x-10-11-11-13 | 10th fret | Eb, root position | F | barred |
| 11-x-13-11-13-13 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | F | barred |
| x-x-13-11-13-13 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | F | barred |
| x-13-13-11-13-13 | 11th fret | Bb, 2nd inversion | F | barred |
| 14-x-13-15-13-13 | 13th fret | Gb, 1st inversion | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 7 drop 3 and 13 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ebm69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Ab).
How to use Ebm69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ebm69 is Fm7♭5 to Bb7♭9: the ii and the V of Eb minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Ebm69 belongs to C# major (the ii, the supertonic) and Bb minor (the iv, the subdominant).
What to play over Ebm69
Every note of Ebm69 is in Eb dorian and Eb melodic minor.
Chords near Ebm69
Change one note of Ebm69 and you have Ebm6 (drop the ninth), Ebm9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), EbmMaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Ebmadd9 (drop the sixth) or Eb69 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Ebm69 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Ebm69’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.