Ebm9 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 Ebm9 — drop 3 voicings
Ebm9 is Eb, Gb, Bb, Db and F — Ebm7 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.
Ebm9 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | Db | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Also written Ebmin9, Eb-9 or Eb minor 9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebm9
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.
Ebm9 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, Db 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 and Db (they fix the quality) 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 Ebm9 as a shell — root, third and seventh — and the spare string takes the 11 (Ab) or the 13 (C).
All 7 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- 243342, 2nd fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note Gb, all fretted
- x6466x, 4th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
- x88879, 7th fret, F, 9th in the bass, top note Db, barred
- x-x-8-10-7-9, 7th fret, Bb, 2nd inversion, top note Db, all fretted
- 11-9-x-10-11-9, 9th fret, Eb, root position, top note Db, all fretted
- x-9-11-10-11-11, 9th fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note Eb, barred
- 11-13-11-11-11-13, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
How to use Ebm9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ebm9 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 Ebm9 belongs to C# major (the ii, the supertonic), Eb minor (the i, the tonic), F# major (the vi, the submediant) and Bb minor (the iv, the subdominant).
What to play over Ebm9
Every note of Ebm9 is in Eb dorian and Eb natural minor.
Chords near Ebm9
Change one note of Ebm9 and you have Ebm69 (the flat seventh becomes the sixth), Ebm7 (drop the ninth), Ebm11 (add the eleventh), EbmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes the major seventh), Ebmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or Eb9 (the minor third becomes the major third).
Ebm9 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.