The Minor 9 Chord
Hi! This is the next set of chords, this is called minor 9. Minor 9 is derived from minor 7 as you can see from the formula. Minor 9 is a minor 7 chord with a 9 added at the end of it. Let's go ahead and get started. We're going to do A through G minor 9, some of these forms will be the same, it will just ne in different positions per the other chords that I've shown you.
First, we're going to start on the 5th fret and we're going to do something that's going to make some classical musicians cringe a little bit. We're going to put our thumb up above, up and over the fret board so that the fleshy part of the thumb actually mutes out the next string over, the A string. So, it's not making any sound. It's called dampening, we’ve done that with a few other chords as you remember right? We're going to take our index; we'll put it down over the 4 strings, the first through 4th string on the 5th fret. We're going to kind of pinch it like this. We're going to pinch this A string in between our thumb and our index finger and sort of mute it out and do just a Minor 7 for now. This is a Minor 7. Then we're going to add this on the end, this is our high two which is our 9 on the next optic. So, here we go A minor 9. Just do a string check, make sure all the strings are coming out clear. Now do a few more strums. Give it some time and practice. And that's an A. And there you go. See you on the next chord.
Okay, this next chord is called B Minor 9. What we're going to do is take the form we just did with A Minor 9 and we're just going to move it up two frets. Just like the piano, B is a whole step away from A. If you're playing on a guitar, that means you're just going up two more frets. If we start here in the 5th fret and we move up to the 7th fret, that's a whole step and bring us up to B. This is B Minor 9. Just do the same thing per the diagram. You can see everything, the formation, the configuration is the same. We're going to use the same fingers just playing on a bit different spot. B minor 9, cool Jazz chord.
Do a string check, make sure they're all coming out and don't worry about the points of your fingers here. You just want to worry about the notes coming out. It helps to practice this especially with pushing this fingers in sort of a bar formation. Once again, this will be a precursor to just going all the way across, if you haven’t been able to do that yet. See you in the next chord.
This is called C Minor 9. We’re going to do a different configuration for this. We’re going to start on the 3rd fret. We’re going to put our middle finger on the C note on the 3rd fret on the 5th string. Then, we’re going to put our index finger out on the 1st fret on the 4th string. And then we’re going to have our ring coming here on the 3rd string on the 3rd fret and our pinky finger, our little finger come up here on the 2nd string on the 3rd fret. And we’re just going to play the middle 4 strings for this. It’s kind of hard to get this back here. It’s usually snug back like this. But we’re going to put it back here. And as you can see per the formula, it contains the same notes. We are missing a couple. We do have the 1, we have the flat 3, we have the flat 7 and we have the 9 but we don’t the rest. But that’s good enough. That works. If you get the smaller form, that’s called “comping”. And this is one of the smaller forms. There you go. Just go through it. The two E strings on either side are off limits per the diagram. Move it around. Do some readjustment with your hand. Sometimes this doesn’t come out too easily. You can do the stretching exercise videos that I’ve shown you to get your fingers stretched out. It’s a practical method. Same tendons in your hand, so all of your body needs to be stretched and worked, eventually it will come out. Stretch out. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is D Minor 9. D Minor 9, we’re just going to did down there C Minor 9 which is here and we’re just going to move it up two frets because, you got it, D comes after C in the alphabet and in music. And we’re going up two. So, we’re going C and C# which is the black key between C and D and we’re going to D. So, here we go. We’re on D. Same thing, same formation, same configuration, same fingers, same everything. Just do it two frets higher. A little bonus is that you can take this finger here and move it over to the bottom and use the fleshy part of the bottom of this finger to mute out the A string and still hit it, just strike over that muted string. Then we go back to the normal position and then back again. So it’s a nice little 1-5. So, you’re putting 1 at the bottom and the 5th goes on the bottom for the next form. And you can kind of make stuff out of that, anywhere just not there but anywhere. Just go through, do a little practice and I think you’re going to be okay.
These forms can be swapped out for simple Minor chords. It can be swapped out for Minor 7 chords. It can be swapped out for Minor 6 chords. They’re all interchangeable just like [00:05:56]. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is E Minor 9 and you guessed it, we’re taking the same form. We’re going to move it up to the 7th fret. So, per the diagram you’re up to the 7th now. The 7th fret is closing your middle finger here. This is E. And per the last chord that we were going over, you can see you can do the same thing up here. You can move this finger which is your middle over to the outside E string for the 5th. So, root and 5th. E Minor 9.
If you haven’t yet, be sure to download the PDF diagrams and other essential materials that are available on Second Floor Studios site. That way you’ll have a good reference to videos and have some paper and pencil stuff that you can work with and do it on your own. If you need us to help you, we’re more than glad to give you a lesson. Come on in and talk to us. We have people who ask us questions all the time and we love to answer questions. Get us via email too. See you in the next chord.
This next chord is F Minor 9. And we’re going to go back to the Form 1 configuration which is where we have our thumb over the back. This is going to be down at the bottom and I’m going to put it down here because - actually I’m going to show you this one and I’m going to show you the other F Minor 9 that we would have done if we would have stayed on the Form 2 position of the A string. This is the first one here. Let’s pinch this down here. Thumb over the back of the 1st fret and then the top four. And we’re going to pinch the A string in the middle to mute it out so all you hear is… You really don’t hear anything. Then we’re going to take our pinky finger and put it out here on the 3rd string here. Let’s go ahead and give that a strum and see how that sounds like. F Minor 9. And the reason I didn’t get you to do it down here is because it’s tough, it’s harder and it will get your hand in shape.
Let’s go to the other form. The other form was Form 2. It is pretty safe to assume that Form 1 chords that base themselves up for E strings and Form 2 are chords base themselves of the A string and so on and so forth. But the A based Form 2, F Minor 9 is here. And E is here. F comes right after E on the keyboard. It’s just a half step or one fret up. If you haven’t downloaded the keyboard diagram, please do so, so you can follow along with us. Here we go F Minor 9 up here. Give it a strum. Go through the string check and we’ll see you in the next lessons.
This last chord is G Minor 9. And G Minor 9 is on the 3rd fret where G is. So, remember our G Minor chord or straight minor chord, then now we get it sophisticated. And we need to a little more here so let’s go ahead and put our thumb over the bottom, the E string. It’s going to mute out - the fleshy part of the thumb is going to mute out the A string that’s underneath there. Then, we’re going to have our index come over and bar over the first four strings on the 3rd fret. And so, you got this over the back and this over the first four. And then, this one is going to go out here on the 5th fret. Your pinky’s going to be out on the 5th. And just squeeze it, give it a strum and there you have it G Minor 9.
Just go through and do a string check, make sure all of the notes are coming out. And you just did A through G Minor 9. Take your time on these chords. It’s better to do it right than to do it quick. There are shortcuts to doing these chords many of which are okay, some aren’t. But you want to do the ones that aren’t going to bind you up later.
