Db9 — Db dominant ninth chord
A dominant seventh chord with the ninth added. The ninth is a whole tone above the root in the octave above it.
- 1 = Db
- 9 = Eb
- 3 = F
- 5 = Ab
- b7 = Cb
- Symbol
- Db9
- Root
- Db
- Quality
- Dominant ninth
- Family
- extended
- Notes
- Db Eb F Ab Cb
- Degree formula
1 9 3 5 b7- Semitones from the root
0 2 4 7 10- Distinct pitch classes
- 5
- Interval structure
- Stacked from the root: 2 semitones, 2 semitones, 3 semitones, 3 semitones
- Notation
- Written 9. The standard extension of a dominant chord in funk, soul and jazz.
- Key
- Db · Db major / Bb 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 | Db | 0 | Perfect unison |
| 9 | Eb | 2 | Major second |
| 3 | F | 4 | Major third |
| 5 | Ab | 7 | Perfect fifth |
| b7 | Cb | 10 | Minor seventh |
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 | Db | 1 | Db – Eb – F – Ab – Cb | 0 2 4 7 10 |
| first inversion | Eb | 9 | Eb – F – Ab – Cb – Db | 0 2 5 8 10 |
| second inversion | F | 3 | F – Ab – Cb – Db – Eb | 0 3 6 8 10 |
| third inversion | Ab | 5 | Ab – Cb – Db – Eb – F | 0 3 5 7 9 |
| fourth inversion | Cb | b7 | Cb – Db – Eb – F – Ab | 0 2 4 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 | 9-8-9-8-9-9 | Db F B Eb Ab Db | 1 3 b7 9 5 1 | Db | 1 | 6 |
| 2 | 9-8-9-8-9-7 | Db F B Eb Ab B | 1 3 b7 9 5 b7 | Db | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 9-11-9-10-9-11 | Db Ab B F Ab Eb | 1 5 b7 3 5 9 | Db | 2 | 6 |
| 4 | 9-6-6-6-6-7 | Db Eb Ab Db F B | 1 9 5 1 3 b7 | Db | 3 | 6 |
| 5 | 9-6-6-8-6-7 | Db Eb Ab Eb F B | 1 9 5 9 3 b7 | Db | 3 | 6 |
| 6 | 9-8-6-8-6-7 | Db F Ab Eb F B | 1 3 5 9 3 b7 | Db | 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 Db
- ScaleDb mixolydian
- ChordDb7
Related
- ChordDb7 — Dominant seventh
- ChordDb11 — Dominant eleventh
- ChordDb13 — Dominant thirteenth
- ChordDbm11 — Minor eleventh
- DegreesC# — degree map
- Neck mapC# — note map
- KeyKey of C#
- ScaleC# aeolian