A#9sus4 — A# dominant ninth suspended fourth chord
A dominant seventh chord with the third replaced by the fourth and the ninth added. The same notes as the dominant eleventh, which is why the two names are used interchangeably.
- 1 = A#
- 4 = D#
- 5 = E#
- b7 = G#
- 9 = B#
- Symbol
- A#9sus4
- Root
- A#
- Quality
- Dominant ninth suspended fourth
- Family
- suspended
- Notes
- A# D# E# G# B#
- Degree formula
1 4 5 b7 9- Semitones from the root
0 2 5 7 10- Distinct pitch classes
- 5
- Interval structure
- Stacked from the root: 5 semitones, 2 semitones, 3 semitones, 4 semitones
- Notation
- Written 9sus4. The common voicing of the dominant eleventh in funk and soul, and the chord behind many single-chord vamps.
- Key
- A# · Bb major / G minor key signature
Fingering charts
The library holds 4 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 | A# | 0 | Perfect unison |
| 4 | D# | 5 | Perfect fourth |
| 5 | E# | 7 | Perfect fifth |
| b7 | G# | 10 | Minor seventh |
| 9 | B# | 2 | Major 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 | A# | 1 | A# – D# – E# – G# – B# | 0 5 7 10 2 |
| first inversion | D# | 4 | D# – E# – G# – B# – A# | 0 2 5 9 7 |
| second inversion | E# | 5 | E# – G# – B# – A# – D# | 0 3 7 5 10 |
| third inversion | G# | b7 | G# – B# – A# – D# – E# | 0 4 2 7 9 |
| fourth inversion | B# | 9 | B# – A# – D# – E# – G# | 0 10 3 5 8 |
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 | 6-6-6-5-6-6 | A# D# G# C F A# | 1 4 b7 9 5 1 | A# | 1 | 6 |
| 2 | 6-6-6-5-6-4 | A# D# G# C F G# | 1 4 b7 9 5 b7 | A# | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 6-6-6-8-6-8 | A# D# G# D# F C | 1 4 b7 4 5 9 | A# | 2 | 6 |
| 4 | 6-8-6-8-6-8 | A# F G# D# F C | 1 5 b7 4 5 9 | A# | 2 | 6 |
| 5 | 6-3-3-3-4-4 | A# C F A# D# G# | 1 9 5 1 4 b7 | A# | 3 | 6 |
| 6 | 6-3-3-5-4-4 | A# C F C D# G# | 1 9 5 9 4 b7 | A# | 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 A#
- ScaleA# mixolydian
- ChordA#9
- ChordA#
- ChordA#7
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