About F#madd9 — drop 3 voicings
F#madd9 is F#, A, C# and G# — F#m 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.
F#madd9 notes and formula
| F# | A | C# | G# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 9 |
Minor tonic — a triad with one colour on it.
Also written F#m(add9), F#min(add9) or F#-add9. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play F#madd9
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.
F#madd9 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: F# in the bass, A in the bass, C# in the bass and G# in the bass. The one to learn first is the A shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 5-3-2-1, 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 xx4224 — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for F#madd9 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 2 of the 7 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 244224 | 2nd fret | F#, root position | G# | barred |
| xx4224 | 2nd fret | F#, root position | G# | all fretted |
| xx7674 | 4th fret | A, 1st inversion | G# | all fretted |
| x9769x | 6th fret | F#, root position | G# | all fretted |
| x97x99 | 7th fret | F#, root position | C# | barred |
| x-12-11-11-9-x | 9th fret | A, 1st inversion | G# | all fretted |
| 14-12-x-13-14-x | 12th fret | F#, root position | C# | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 12 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
How to use F#madd9
How you get to it. The turn that lands on F#madd9 is G#m7♭5 to C#7♭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 F#madd9 belongs to C# minor (the iv, the subdominant), E major (the ii, the supertonic), F# minor (the i, the tonic) and A major (the vi, the submediant).
What to play over F#madd9
Every note of F#madd9 is in F# dorian, F# natural minor, F# harmonic minor and F# melodic minor.
Chords near F#madd9
Change one note of F#madd9 and you have F#m (drop the ninth), F#sus2 (drop the minor third), F#sus2sus4 (the minor third becomes a fourth), F#m6 (the ninth becomes a sixth), F#m69 (add the sixth) or F#m7 (the ninth becomes a flat seventh).
F#madd9 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On F#madd9’s sound and use this page follows Robert Rawlins & Nor Eddine Bahha, Jazzology (Hal Leonard, 2005). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.