Augmented ninth shapesaug9

It sounds bright, tense and slightly unreal. Raising the fifth leaves no semitone in the lower half of the chord, which is where the whole-tone flavour comes from.

4 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 Caug9. 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.

8frR♭73♯59

8-x-8-9-9-10

5 notes · 3 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.

2frR3♭79♯5

x32334

5 notes · 3 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.

1st inversion

3 in the bass.

3 on the low E string, root on the B string

12fr3♭79♯5R3

12-13-12-13-13-12

6 notes · 2 frets

3rd inversion

♭7 in the bass.

♭7 on the low E string, root on the G string

5fr♭79♯5R3♭7

656556

6 notes · 2 frets

The other altered shapes

Every voicing of one particular aug9 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.

Midi Settings

7.5
Play Style
One pass of the pick from the lowest string up, everything left ringing.
Instrument
350
150

Style

Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.

Layout

Left Handed Mode