Ab7♭9 — Ab dominant seventh flat ninth chord
A dominant seventh chord with the ninth flattened. The flat ninth sits a semitone above the root in the octave above, and the chord resolves down a fifth.
- 1 = Ab
- 3 = C
- 5 = Eb
- b7 = Gb
- b9 = Bbb
- Symbol
- Ab7♭9
- Root
- Ab
- Quality
- Dominant seventh flat ninth
- Family
- altered
- Notes
- Ab C Eb Gb Bbb
- Degree formula
1 3 5 b7 b9- Semitones from the root
0 1 4 7 10- Distinct pitch classes
- 5
- Interval structure
- Stacked from the root: 4 semitones, 3 semitones, 3 semitones, 3 semitones
- Notation
- Written 7♭9. The dominant of a minor key, because the flat ninth belongs to the harmonic minor scale of the target.
- Key
- Ab · Ab major / F minor key signature
Fingering charts
The library holds 5 fingerings of this chord and all of them are shown, in the library’s own order. Several fingerings of one chord is normal: the same notes can be stopped at different positions and on different strings.
Formula
The chord tones in order from the root, with the interval each one forms above it.
| Degree | Note | Semitones | Interval from the root |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ab | 0 | Perfect unison |
| 3 | C | 4 | Major third |
| 5 | Eb | 7 | Perfect fifth |
| b7 | Gb | 10 | Minor seventh |
| b9 | Bbb | 1 | Minor second |
Inversions
An inversion is the same set of notes with a different one in the bass. The last column gives the distance of each note above the bass note, in semitones.
| Inversion | Bass note | Degree in the bass | Notes above the bass | Semitones above the bass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| root position | Ab | 1 | Ab – C – Eb – Gb – Bbb | 0 4 7 10 1 |
| first inversion | C | 3 | C – Eb – Gb – Bbb – Ab | 0 3 6 9 8 |
| second inversion | Eb | 5 | Eb – Gb – Bbb – Ab – C | 0 3 6 5 9 |
| third inversion | Gb | b7 | Gb – Bbb – Ab – C – Eb | 0 3 2 6 9 |
| fourth inversion | Bbb | b9 | Bbb – Ab – C – Eb – Gb | 0 11 3 6 9 |
Playable voicings
These shapes were found by searching the fretboard of a standard-tuned guitar (E A D G B E) rather than copied from a chord book. The search allows every string to sound or to be muted, rejects any shape with a muted string between two sounding strings, rejects any shape whose fretted notes span more than four frets (a five-fret window), requires every chord tone to be present, and then sorts what remains with root-position shapes first and the most compact, lowest shapes next. The shapes shown are the first six of that ordering; other orderings are possible at the same frets.
| # | Shape (low string first) | Notes | Degrees | Bass | Span (frets) | Sounding strings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4-3-4-2-4-2 | Ab C Gb A Eb Gb | 1 3 b7 b9 5 b7 | Ab | 2 | 6 |
| 2 | 4-3-4-2-4-4 | Ab C Gb A Eb Ab | 1 3 b7 b9 5 1 | Ab | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 4-3-4-5-4-5 | Ab C Gb C Eb A | 1 3 b7 3 5 b9 | Ab | 2 | 6 |
| 4 | 4-6-4-5-4-5 | Ab Eb Gb C Eb A | 1 5 b7 3 5 b9 | Ab | 2 | 6 |
| 5 | 4-3-1-2-1-2 | Ab C Eb A C Gb | 1 3 5 b9 3 b7 | Ab | 3 | 6 |
| 6 | 4-3-1-2-4-2 | Ab C Eb A Eb Gb | 1 3 5 b9 5 b7 | Ab | 3 | 6 |
Shape numbers run from the lowest string to the highest, so the left-hand number is the sixth string (low E) in standard tuning. Multiple shapes are listed because a chord can be voiced several ways, and because a lower position is not always the better sounding one.
Related chords and scales
- KeyEverything in Ab
- ScaleAb diminished (half-whole)
- ChordAb7
- ChordAb
Related