Ninth Chord,Types Of Ninth Chords

## **Ninth Chords**

### **Introduction**

The most commonly used chords in Western music are triads,which are constructed of stacked thirds.Triads are made up of the first(root),third, and fifth degree of a scale.If you add one more note,you have a seventh , which is a chord made up of the first ,third,fifth, and seventh scale degrees.But it doesn't stop there! You can continue to make bigger and bigger chords by adding even more thirds to the stack, until either you literally have no more keys left on the piano to work with (or strings on the guitar) or you run out of fingers.These bigger and more complex chords built from stacked thirds are called ***Extended Chords.***

Just like when you're constructing triads and seventh chords,the quantity of each chord built on a scale remains the same , but the quality or the chord changes depending on which degree.

One thing to realize when you're building extended chords is that you can find many more possible permutations out there.To keep things from getting too ridiculous,though, we're just going to give you a few examples.

Curious about all the potential extended chords? Think of it like a combination lock: when you have three notes to work with, as in triads, you have only four different ways to construct a chord: Major, minor,Augmented, and diminished.When you're working with seventh chords, we've shown you six ways to construct chords: Major seventh, minor seventh,flatted seventh'minor seventh, diminished seventh,and minor-Major seventh.When you add one,two,or three more notes to the mix,you have even more possibilities avilable to you.

We limit ourselves in the following sections to the most commonly used permutations of extended chords, concentrating more on the ***Ninth chords,*** which are used pretty extensively in ***POP and Jazz Music.***

We also highlight just a couple of eleventh and thirteenth chords,since most people have hands smaller than Fats Waller's and trouble covering all the notes.

## **Ninth Chords**

A ***Ninth chord*** is a chord that has one more third added to it than a seventh chord, and results in a bigger, fuller sound even a triad or seventh chord.So, for example, consisting of the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth degree of the C Major scale, is just our ***Types of C seventh chords ,***with one more third stuck on top of the pile.The results is the ***C Ninth Chord***,which you you can see in the next Figures.

## **Types of Ninth Chords**

### **Type 1: Major ninth chords**

Major ninth chords are formed by combining the **First, third, Fifth, Major Seventh, and Ninth** degrees of a major scale---or by adding a Major ninth to a **Major seventh chord**---- and is written as ***Ma9,*** or ***M9.***Check out Figure 2 to see what it whould look like if we constructed major ninth chords for every major scale.

### **Type 2: minor Ninth Chords**

Minor ninth chords are formed by combining the **First, Flatted Third, Fifth, Flatted Seventh, and Ninth** degrees of a Major scale, or a **minor Seventh chord** with a **Major Ninth** added.The symbol you use is **min9,mi9,m9,** or **C-9.**So , for example, A minor 9 would be written as either **Amin9,Ami9,Am9,** or **A-9,** depending on the transcriber.

### **Type 3: Dominant Ninth chords**

Dominant ninth chords are formed by combining the **First, Third, Fifth, Flatted Seventh,** and **Ninth** degrees of a Major scale, or a **Dominant Seventh Chord** with a **Major Ninth.**So for example, in the C Major scale,is written as ***C9.***

### **Type 4: Ninth augmented fifth chords**

Ninth augmented fifth chords are formed by combining, the **First, Third, Sharped Fifth, Flatted Seventh or Major Seventh,** and  **Ninth** degrees of a Major scale, and is written as ***9(#5),aug9,#5 9** and **+9*** **,** as in ***C9(#5), Caug9,C+9,C#5 9,** and **M9(#5),augM9,+M9,** as in **CM9#5,CaugM9,C+M9*** Figure 4 shows the Ninth augmented fifth chord.

### **Type 5: Ninth Flatted Fifth Chord**

You form ninth flatted fifth chords by combining the **First, Third, Flatted Fifth, Major Seventh or Flatted Seventh(Minor Seventh),** and **Ninth** degrees of the Major scale.When you're writing a ninth flatted fifth for a particular scale, you add ***9b5*** or ***9-5*** and ***M9b5*** or ***M9-5.***For example, the C ninth flatted fifth chord is written ***C9b5*** or ***C9-5*** and ***CM9b5*** or ***CM9-5.***

### **Type 6: Seventh Flat Ninth Piano Chord**

When you combine the **First, Third, Flatted Seventh(Minor Seventh)** or **Major Seventh,** and **Flatted Ninth** degrees of a Major scale , or take a **C7 Chord** and a **Diminished Ninth** to it,you get a seventh flat ninth chord.You write a seventh flat ninth piano chord as ***7-9*** or ***7b9,***as in ***C7-9*** or ***C7b9***  and so as ***M7-9*** or ***M7b9,*** as in ***CM7-9*** or ***CM7b9*** as in figure 6.

### **Type 7: Augmented Ninth Chords**

You can build an augmented ninth chord by combining the **First, Third, Fifth, Flatted Seventh(Minor Seventh)** or **Major Seventh,** and **Sharped Ninth** degrees of chord's Major scale, or a **Dominant Seventh Chord** plus a **Major Ninth.**When writing it out, you would add a ***9+*** or ***7(9+)*** and ***M9+*** or ***M7(9+)*** to the chord name.The C Major augmented ninth chord would look like ***C9+*** or ***C7(9+)*** and ***CM9+*** or ***CM7(9+)***  as in Figure 7.

### **Type 8: Ninth Diminished Fifth Chords**

Ninth diminished fifth chords are formed by combining the **First, Flatted Third(Minor Third), Flatted Seventh(minor Seventh)** or **Major Seventh,** and **Ninth** degrees of a Major scale,or an **Half-diminished Seventh Chord** plus a **Major Ninth.**The symbol you can use,explained as in figure 8.

### **Type 9: Flatted Ninth Diminished Fifth chord**

When you combine the **First, Flatted Third(minor Third), Diminished fifth(Flatted fifth),Faltted Seventh(minor Seventh),** and **Flatted Ninth** degrees of a Major scale or take an ***Half-diminished Seventh Chord*** and add a **diminished(flatted) Ninth** to it,you get a Flatted Ninth Diminished fifth chord.You write a Flatted Ninth Diminished fifth chord as in figure 9.

### **Type 10: Ninth Diminished Seventh Chords**

Ninth diminished seventh chords are formed by combining the **First, Flatted Third(minor Third), Flatted(diminished) Fifth, Diminished Seventh(Double Flatted Seventh),** and **Ninth** degrees of a major scale or a **Diminished Seventh Chord** with a **Major Ninth** added.The Symbol you can use is in Figure 10.

### **Type 11: Ninth Minor/Major Seventh Chord**

You can build a ninth minor/major seventh chord by combining the **First, Flatted Third(minor Third), Fifth, Seventh(Major Seventh),** and **Ninth** degrees of a major scale, or **a The minor/Major Seventh Chord** plus a **Major Ninth.**When writing it out , you would add **min Maj7(9),mi Maj7(9),m Maj7 9** or **m M9**  to the chord name.The A ninth minor/Major seventh chord would look like **Am Maj7(9),Ami M7(9),Amin Maj7(9) or Am M9**

### **Major Sixth Ninth and Minor Sixth Ninth chords**

Sixth/Ninth Chords are formed by combining the **First, Third or Flatted Third,Fifth,Sixth,** and **Ninth** degrees of a Majoe scale, or a **Major Sixth Chord** with a **Major Ninth,**or a **Minor Sixth Chord** with a Major Ninth.The symbol you use is ***6/9,m6/9.***so for example C Ninth major sixth chord would be written as ***C6/9.***and so A ninth minor sixth chord is written as in ***Am6/9.***

Source: Music Theory for Dummies 3rd edition by Michael Pilhofer and Holly Day