Ebm9 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 Ebm9 — rootless 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.
Ebm9 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | Db | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | ♭7 | 9 |
Pre-dominant or minor tonic — an m7’s job with more colour.
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
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.
Ebm9 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: Gb in the bass, Bb in the bass, Db in the bass and F in the bass. The one to learn first is the F shape at the 2nd fret, 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 x-x-8-10-7-9 — no barre. None of the shapes for Ebm9 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 4 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 243342 | 2nd fret | Gb, 1st inversion | Gb | all fretted |
| x6466x | 4th fret | Eb, root position | F | barred |
| x88879 | 7th fret | F, 9th in the bass | Db | barred |
| x-x-8-10-7-9 | 7th fret | Bb, 2nd inversion | Db | all fretted |
| 11-9-x-10-11-9 | 9th fret | Eb, root position | Db | all fretted |
| x-9-11-10-11-11 | 9th fret | Gb, 1st inversion | Eb | barred |
| 11-13-11-11-11-13 | 11th fret | Eb, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 10 drop 2 and 7 drop 3 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ebm9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Ab) and the 13 (C).
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 a sixth), Ebm7 (drop the ninth), Ebm11 (add the fourth), EbmMaj9 (the flat seventh becomes a major seventh), Ebmadd9 (drop the flat seventh) or Eb9 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Ebm9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Ebm9’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book (Sher Music, 1995). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.