Ebm69 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 Ebm69 — rootless 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
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.
Ebm69 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: Gb in the bass, Bb in the bass, C in the bass and F in the bass. The one to learn first is the F 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 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, 11 drop 2 and 7 drop 3 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.