How to use my secret 9 trick to add flavor to your chord progressions

I left you with this nice ballad-style chord progression:

*Play the chord with your right hand and play the single bass with your left hand.

[Set 1]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: C
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: B

[Set 2]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: A
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

[Set 3]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: F
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: E

[Set 4]
1-chord = C major (C + E + G) *** Bass: D
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

*This takes us perfectly to the beginning, where we start all over with our C major (1-chord).

And for a chord progression that only uses 2 chords, it sounds pretty darn good!

It’s used EVERYWHERE from Mariah Carey to Andre Crouch, as you saw on the videos I shared with you yesterday.

Today, I want to show you how to spice up this chord progression by employing one little trick. I’m not even going to cover more chords just yet. I’m just going to show you how to spice up the 2 chords you already know from this example.

Want to know the secret?

Some of you may already know it…

The secret is the “9.”

(And this works for any slow, ballad-style song — especially worship music).

Now, some people call it the “2,” depending on how and where you’re using it. I’m not too much concerned with explaining that part right now. You can find tons of prior lessons on the terminology by searching for “ninth chords” or “add 9″ in my search box above.

But what is important is determining what the “9th” (or “2nd”) tone of your chord is.

Here’s how you find the magic 9 and then I’ll show you what to do with it.

Let’s look at our first chord, which happens to be a “C major.”

It obviously comes from the C major scale:

C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

From yesterday’s post, you understand the importance of numbering your scale.

Notice, however, that the scale only goes up to 7. Let’s add another octave (basically repeat the scale a little higher).

C D E F G A B C D E_ F_ G_ A_ B_ C

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

(Don’t mind the little “_” underscores. I’m just using those to make my numbers line up with the letters. I can just see someone freakin’ out over that now! :-)… “Oh my gosh, what are those underscores!!!” Just joking…)

What is the 9th tone of the scale?

Answer: D

It’s also the 2nd tone of the scale so whichever way you want to look at it is fine. For the purposes of this lesson, the only important thing is that you know the NOTE to add. The 2 and 9 will always give you the same NOTE (although one is a high version and the other is a low version, technically).

So what do we do with this magic “9th” tone?

You guessed it.

We simply add it to our chord.

C major triad
C + E + G

C major with added 9
C + D + E + G

Some people even choose not to play the “C” because it will be taken care of with your left hand bass. If you prefer that sound, then only play “D + E + G” on your right hand with a “C” on your left hand bass. That will work too!

Ok, so let’s replace all our chords with our new chord and see what we get:

*Play the chord with your right hand and play the single bass with your left hand.

[Set 1]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: C
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: B

[Set 2]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: A
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

[Set 3]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: F
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: E

[Set 4]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: D
5-chord = G major (B + D + G) *** Bass: G

*This takes us perfectly to the beginning, where we start all over with our C major (1-chord).

Sounds good doesn’t it?

But we won’t stop there. Let’s add the secret “9″ to our 5-chord as well.

Simply go through the same process with the G major chord, determining it’s 9th tone (or 2nd tone).

The magic “9″ for G major should be “A.”

But if you recall from yesterday’s lesson, we intentionally inverted our “G major” chord so that “G” was on top. This provided a smoother transition between the two chords. We surely don’t want to mess this up by adding “A” on top so we’re actually going to add it on the bottom:

G major triad (inverted)
B + D + G

G major with added 9 (inverted)
A + B + D +G

*For some, it can be awkward playing the “A” and “B” with separate fingers so some people just play both the “A” and “B” with their thumb. That’s right! You can play two notes with one finger. Musicians do it all the time! So if that’s easier for you, just let your thumb handle both notes.

Let’s wrap it all up!

[Set 1]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: C
5-chord = G major (A + B + D + G) *** Bass: B

[Set 2]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: A
5-chord = G major (A + B + D + G) *** Bass: G

[Set 3]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: F
5-chord = G major (A + B + D + G) *** Bass: E

[Set 4]
1-chord = C major (C + D + E + G) *** Bass: D
5-chord = G major (A + B + D + G) *** Bass: G

Curious to hear what you guys think about the “added” 9 trick! Let me know!

Until next time —

Related posts:

1. This trick will spice up your dominant chord progressions… instantly!
2. The secret behind “big picture thinking”
3. Another altered chord progression you can try
4. Chord progression with various altered chords
5. Variations of “2-5-1″ Chord Progressions
6. Opening and closing your songs with “2-5-1″ progressions!
7. The secret to inspiring your own flavorful altered chords!

Tagged as: add 2, add 9, adding spice to chords, altering chords, chord flavor, major ninth chords, ninth chords