Ebm69 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Ebm69 — drop 3 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.
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Ebm69 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | C | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
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
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
Ebm69 has 7 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, 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 2nd fret.
4 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, 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.
Five notes and four fingers, so something has to go. Keep Gb (it fixes the quality) and C and F (what the symbol is about). Let Bb and Eb go, in that order — a perfect fifth says nothing the root has not, and in a band the bass has the root.
Play Ebm69 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (Ab).
All 9 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 211311, 1st fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note F, barred
- x6456x, 4th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, all fretted
- 11-9-10-10-x-x, 9th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, all fretted
- x-9-10-10-11-11, 9th fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note Eb, all fretted
- 11-x-10-11-11-13, 10th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
- 11-x-13-11-13-13, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
- x-x-13-11-13-13, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
- x-13-13-11-13-13, 11th fret, Bb, 2nd inversion, top note F, barred
- 14-x-13-15-13-13, 13th fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note F, barred
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 the flat seventh), EbmMaj9 (the sixth becomes the major seventh), Ebmadd9 (drop the sixth) or Eb69 (the minor third becomes the major third).
Ebm69 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.