Lately, we’ve been talking about sevenths and ninth chords.

Today, I want to show you a simple way to spice up your ninth chords using seventh chords.

Specifically, I want to deal with the minor ninth chord.

For the longest, I’ve taught students to simply think of the minor ninth chord as the major seventh of the flatted 3rd degree over the keynote bass.

I know that sounds tricky. That’s why I always break stuff like this down.

So your keynote is the title of the chord. If you want to play a C minor 9 chord, then your keynote is “C.” If you want to play an F minor 9 chord, then your keynote is “F.” If you want to play a Bb minor 9, then your keynote is ___what___?

Bb… exactly!

So you have that part out of the way.

Now for the second part, you have two options. You can think in terms of the major scale of that keynote or you can think in terms of the minor scale.

If major scales come easier to you, go that route! If you don’t have a problem with minor scales, it may be easier to stick with minor.

But if you’re thinking in terms of major, you’ll need to go to the flat 3 degree. So you’ll need to go to the third tone of the regular major scale and lower that tone a half step.

So if your keynote is “C,” you’ll need to go up to the third degree, which is “E,” and lower that note a half step to Eb. This gives you the flat 3rd (a.k.a. - ‘b3′) of C major.

If you’re thinking in terms of minor, simply go to the third tone of the minor scale because it’s already flatted. In other words, you can’t play a minor scale without a flatted third.

But anyway, however you get to this “magic” tone is up to you. The importance is that you play a major seventh chord off THIS tone.

So you’ll need to know all your major 7 chords with your eyes closed.

But this is the easiest part. You just play a major seventh chord over the original keynote of your chord. Let’s try a few…

If my keynote is C, I’ll determine the b3 first (”Eb”) and then I’ll play an “Eb major 7″ chord over the C bass.

C + (Eb major 7)
C + (Eb + G + Bb + D)

If my keynote is G, I’ll determine the b3 first (”Bb”) and then I’ll play a “Bb major 7″ chord over the G bass.

G + (Bb major 7)
G + (Bb + D + F + A)

If my keynote is G#, I’ll determine the b3 first (”B”) and then I’ll play a “B major 7″ chord over the G# bass.

G# + (B major 7)
G# + (B + D# + F# + A#)

All of these give me nice-sounding minor 9 chords.

But there’s a way to get a nicer sound. What I like to do is invert my major 7 chord in the right hand.

Remember that an inversion is just a different way to play the chord. It is literally shifting or changing the order of notes in the chord. They should have simply called it “reordering” or something… but that words seems just as intimidating (LOL).

Let’s take the C minor 9 chord we learned above…

C + (Eb + G + Bb + D)

Instead of playing the “Eb major 7″ chord with “Eb” as the lowest note, I want to play this chord with “Bb” as the lowest note.

This is what we call “second inversion.” It’s when you play a chord with its fifth degree as the lowest note. And if you notice, “Bb” is the fifth degree of “Eb major” (is it not?).

So by playing your major 7 chords with their 5th on the bottom, you’ll get this nice, “clustered,” sound. What it does is make two notes extremely close together in the chord: Bb + D + Eb + G

See the “D” and “Eb?”

When the chord was open, those notes were maximally separated. They were the farthest apart, and that gave you a unique sound. Now that they are the closest apart, you get a totally different sound.

So compare the voicings…

C + (Eb + G + Bb + D) = Right hand: Eb major in root position

C + (Bb + D + Eb + G) = Right hand: Eb major in second inversion

*With all outside circumstances being equal, I like the second option better. Some may like the first.

Now, depending on your melody, you may pick the first voicing if you want to put a “D” on top. If you want to put a “G” on top and the chord calls for a minor sound, there you go! Bingo!

So I took so long with this because I wanted you to see the power of:

#1 Shortcuts: As I’ve taught in the past, you can play a bigger chord by thinking of smaller, familiar chords.

#2 Numbers: If you know how to immediately go to any scale degree (natural or flatted), then you’re golden! These shortcuts will work even better for you.

#3 Inversions: You can always move around notes to find the sound that best fits your situation. If you want the open sound, go with the open inversion. If you want the clustered, “close together” sound, go with the second option I taught you.

Until next time —

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