F7b9 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
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About F7b9 — drop 3 voicings
F7b9 is F, A, C, Eb and Gb — F9 with the ninth lowered a semitone.
It sounds dark and urgent. The flat ninth comes from the harmonic minor, so this is the V of a minor key rather than a major one.
F7b9 notes and formula
| F | A | C | Eb | Gb |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | ♭7 | ♭9 |
Altered dominant — it points at a minor chord.
Also written F7(b9), F7-9 or F7♭9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play F7b9
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.
F7b9 has 7 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 2nd fret up to the 10th — every inversion the chord has: F in the bass, A in the bass, Eb in the bass and Gb in the bass. The one to learn first is the Gb 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.
Start with xx1212 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for F7b9 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 3 of the 6 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx1212 | 1st fret | Eb, 3rd inversion | Gb | all fretted |
| 131212 | 1st fret | F, root position | Gb | barred |
| xx3242 | 2nd fret | F, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| x87878 | 7th fret | F, root position | C | barred |
| 13-12-13-11-x-x | 11th fret | F, root position | Gb | all fretted |
| 13-x-13-14-13-14 | 13th fret | F, root position | Gb | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 3 shell, 11 drop 2 and 13 rootless voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of F7b9, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the #11 (B), the b13 (Db) and the 13 (D).
How to use F7b9
F7b9 is a dominant with its tension raised, so it still points at Bb — harder than a plain seventh does, because the altered tones sit a semitone from where they are going.
Voice by voice, F7b9 → Bbm. 3 voices move by a semitone, and one note is common to both chords.
| In F7b9 | Moves | In Bbm |
|---|---|---|
| F, the root | stays where it is | F, the fifth |
| A, the major third | rises a semitone | Bb, the root |
| C, the fifth | rises a semitone | Db, the minor third |
| Eb, the flat seventh | falls a whole tone | Db, the minor third |
| Gb, the flat ninth | falls a semitone | F, the fifth |
What to play over F7b9
Every note of F7b9 is in F half-whole diminished.
Chords near F7b9
Change one note of F7b9 and you have F7 (drop the flat ninth), Falt (the fifth becomes a sharp fifth), F9 (the flat ninth becomes a ninth), F7#9 (the flat ninth becomes a minor third) or F/D# (drop the flat ninth).
F7b9 is an altered chord — a dominant seventh with its fifth or ninth moved. Altered dominant chords on every root.
On F7b9’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.