Fm69 guitar chord
A close-position chord with the second voice from the top lowered an octave. Sits on four adjacent strings.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Fm69 — drop 2 voicings
Fm69 is F, Ab, C, D and G — Fm6 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.
Fm69 notes and formula
| F | Ab | C | D | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 | 9 |
Minor tonic — nothing in it is pulling.
Also written Fm6/9, Fmin6/9 or F-6/9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Fm69
Take the four notes stacked as close together as they go, then drop the second voice from the top an octave. The gap it opens is what makes the chord sound like a chord rather than a cluster.
It lands on four adjacent strings, which is why it is the workhorse voicing on guitar.
Fm69 has 13 of them, on the top four strings, the middle four strings and the bottom four strings, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: F in the bass, Ab in the bass, D in the bass and G 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 x8678x — no barre. None of the shapes for Fm69 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 6 of the 10 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1x3133 | 1st fret | F, root position | G | barred |
| xx3133 | 1st fret | F, root position | G | barred |
| x33133 | 1st fret | C, 2nd inversion | G | barred |
| 433533 | 3rd fret | Ab, 1st inversion | G | barred |
| x8678x | 6th fret | F, root position | G | all fretted |
| 13-11-12-0-13-x | 11th fret | F, root position | C | 1 open string |
| 13-11-12-12-x-x | 11th fret | F, root position | G | all fretted |
| x-11-12-12-13-13 | 11th fret | Ab, 1st inversion | F | all fretted |
| 13-x-12-13-13-15 | 12th fret | F, root position | G | barred |
| 13-15-15-13-15-15 | 13th fret | F, root position | G | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell, 9 drop 3, 14 rootless and 3 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Fm69, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 11 (Bb).
How to use Fm69
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Fm69 is Gm7♭5 to C7♭9: the ii and the V of F minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Fm69 belongs to C minor (the iv, the subdominant) and Eb major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Fm69
Every note of Fm69 is in F dorian and F melodic minor.
Chords near Fm69
Change one note of Fm69 and you have Fm6 (drop the ninth), Fm9 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), FmMaj9 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Fmadd9 (drop the sixth) or F69 (the minor third becomes a major third).
Fm69 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Fm69’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.