G♭9sus4 — G♭ 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 = G♭
- 4 = C♭
- 5 = D♭
- b7 = F♭
- 9 = A♭
- Symbol
- Gb9sus4
- Root
- Gb
- Quality
- Dominant ninth suspended fourth
- Family
- suspended
- Notes
- Gb Cb Db Fb Ab
- 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
- Gb · Gb major / Eb 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 | G♭ | 0 | Perfect unison |
| 4 | C♭ | 5 | Perfect fourth |
| 5 | D♭ | 7 | Perfect fifth |
| b7 | F♭ | 10 | Minor seventh |
| 9 | A♭ | 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 | G♭ | 1 | G♭ – C♭ – D♭ – F♭ – A♭ | 0 5 7 10 2 |
| first inversion | C♭ | 4 | C♭ – D♭ – F♭ – A♭ – G♭ | 0 2 5 9 7 |
| second inversion | D♭ | 5 | D♭ – F♭ – A♭ – G♭ – C♭ | 0 3 7 5 10 |
| third inversion | F♭ | b7 | F♭ – A♭ – G♭ – C♭ – D♭ | 0 4 2 7 9 |
| fourth inversion | A♭ | 9 | A♭ – G♭ – C♭ – D♭ – F♭ | 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 | 2-2-2-1-2-2 | Gb B E Ab Db Gb | 1 4 b7 9 5 1 | Gb | 1 | 6 |
| 2 | 14-14-14-13-14-14 | Gb B E Ab Db Gb | 1 4 b7 9 5 1 | Gb | 1 | 6 |
| 3 | 2-2-2-1-2-0 | Gb B E Ab Db E | 1 4 b7 9 5 b7 | Gb | 2 | 6 |
| 4 | 2-2-2-4-2-4 | Gb B E B Db Ab | 1 4 b7 4 5 9 | Gb | 2 | 6 |
| 5 | 2-4-2-4-2-4 | Gb Db E B Db Ab | 1 5 b7 4 5 9 | Gb | 2 | 6 |
| 6 | 14-14-14-13-14-12 | Gb B E Ab Db E | 1 4 b7 9 5 b7 | Gb | 2 | 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 Gb
- ScaleGb mixolydian
- ChordGb9
- ChordGb
- ChordGb7
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