Dbm9♭5 — Db minor ninth flat fifth chord
A half-diminished seventh chord with the ninth added. Four minor thirds apart in the lower voices, with the ninth on top.
- 1 = Db
- b3 = Fb
- b5 = Abb
- b7 = Cb
- 9 = Eb
- Symbol
- Dbm9♭5
- Root
- Db
- Quality
- Minor ninth flat fifth
- Family
- extended
- Notes
- Db Fb Abb Cb Eb
- Degree formula
1 b3 b5 b7 9- Semitones from the root
0 2 3 6 10- Distinct pitch classes
- 5
- Interval structure
- Stacked from the root: 3 semitones, 3 semitones, 4 semitones, 4 semitones
- Notation
- Written m9♭5. The ii chord of a minor ii-V-i when the ninth is wanted.
- Key
- Db · Db major / Bb minor key signature
Fingering charts
The library holds 3 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 |
| b3 | Fb | 3 | Minor third |
| b5 | Abb | 6 | Tritone |
| b7 | Cb | 10 | Minor seventh |
| 9 | Eb | 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 | Db | 1 | Db – Fb – Abb – Cb – Eb | 0 3 6 10 2 |
| first inversion | Fb | b3 | Fb – Abb – Cb – Eb – Db | 0 3 7 11 9 |
| second inversion | Abb | b5 | Abb – Cb – Eb – Db – Fb | 0 4 8 6 9 |
| third inversion | Cb | b7 | Cb – Eb – Db – Fb – Abb | 0 4 2 5 8 |
| fourth inversion | Eb | 9 | Eb – Db – Fb – Abb – Cb | 0 10 1 4 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 | 9-7-9-8-8-7 | Db E B Eb G B | 1 b3 b7 9 b5 b7 | Db | 2 | 6 |
| 2 | 9-7-9-8-8-9 | Db E B Eb G Db | 1 b3 b7 9 b5 1 | Db | 2 | 6 |
| 3 | 9-6-9-9-8-7 | Db Eb B E G B | 1 9 b7 b3 b5 b7 | Db | 3 | 6 |
| 4 | 9-6-9-9-8-9 | Db Eb B E G Db | 1 9 b7 b3 b5 1 | Db | 3 | 6 |
| 5 | 9-10-9-9-8-11 | Db G B E G Eb | 1 b5 b7 b3 b5 9 | Db | 3 | 6 |
| 6 | 9-10-9-9-12-11 | Db G B E B Eb | 1 b5 b7 b3 b7 9 | 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 locrian
- ChordDbm7b5
- ChordDbm
- ChordDbm7
Related
- ChordDbm7b5 — Half-diminished seventh
- ChordDbm — Minor
- ChordDbm7 — Minor seventh
- ChordDb11 — Dominant eleventh
- ChordDb13 — Dominant thirteenth
- ChordDb9 — Dominant ninth
- DegreesC# — degree map
- Neck mapC# — note map