About Ebmadd9 — drop 3 voicings
Ebmadd9 is Eb, Gb, Bb and F — Ebm with the ninth added, and no seventh.
It sounds sharp-edged. The ninth grinding a whole step under the minor third is the edge an m9 softens.
Minor tonic — a triad with one colour on it.
Ebmadd9 notes and formula
| Eb | Gb | Bb | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 9 |
Also written Ebm(add9), Ebmin(add9) or Eb-add9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ebmadd9
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.
Ebmadd9 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, Bb 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.
All 7 common shapes as fret numbers, lowest string first. Hover or tap one to see it drawn.
- xx4341, 1st fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note F, all fretted
- x6436x, 3rd fret, Eb, root position, top note F, all fretted
- x64x66, 4th fret, Eb, root position, top note Bb, barred
- x9886x, 6th fret, Gb, 1st inversion, top note F, all fretted
- 11-9-x-10-11-x, 9th fret, Eb, root position, top note Bb, all fretted
- 11-13-13-11-11-13, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, barred
- x-x-13-11-11-13, 11th fret, Eb, root position, top note F, all fretted
How to use Ebmadd9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ebmadd9 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 Ebmadd9 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 Ebmadd9
Every note of Ebmadd9 is in Eb dorian, Eb natural minor, Eb harmonic minor and Eb melodic minor.
Chords near Ebmadd9
Change one note of Ebmadd9 and you have Ebm (drop the ninth), Ebsus2 (drop the minor third), Ebsus2sus4 (the minor third becomes the fourth), Ebm6 (the ninth becomes the sixth), Ebm69 (add the sixth) or Ebm7 (the ninth becomes the flat seventh).
Ebmadd9 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.