Nine flat five shapes9♭5

It sounds sleek and tense. Played as a tritone substitution the ♭5 is the root of the dominant it replaced.

3 moveable shapes. None has an open string in it, so each one plays every root there is; the dots are degrees, and R is the root.

One shape, twelve chords

Pick a root and every diagram below moves to it. Nothing about any of the grips changes — only the fret they start on, and each one starts somewhere different because they are rooted on different strings.

Showing C9♭5. Every voicing of it, open strings included, is on its own chord page.

Root on the low E string

The lowest root available, so these are the fullest-sounding shapes and the ones that carry a band. F at the first fret, G at the third, A at the fifth: the shape is the same and the fret is the whole of the difference.

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6 notes · 2 frets

Root on the A string

The other half of the pair. Almost every progression is played by alternating these with the low E shapes, because a root a fourth up the neck is a root two frets along the string below — the hand barely moves.

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5 notes · 2 frets

Inversions

The same chord with something other than the root underneath. You reach for one of these because of what the bass is doing, not because of what the chord is — a bass line that walks while the harmony stays put is made of these.

2nd inversion

♭5 in the bass.

♭5 on the A string, root on the D string

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5 notes · 3 frets

The other altered shapes

Seven flat five Altered dominant Augmented seventh Augmented ninth Seven flat nine Seven sharp nine Nine sharp eleven

Every voicing of one particular 9♭5 chord — including the open-string ones that do not move — is on that chord's own page, linked under each shape above. All the moveable shapes for every quality are on the shapes index, and the altered dominant chords as a family are on their own page.