A♭9 guitar chord
A♭ dominant 9 is A♭, C, E♭, G♭ and B♭. Below are the shapes up the neck, the note each string sounds, and the country, blues, and pop progressions A♭9 turns up in — press ▶ on any grid to hear it.
A♭94 shapes up the neck
Where you'll hear A♭9
The chord in its usual company, already moved into your key. A♭9 is the highlighted one — it won't always be first, because some chords only ever pass through on the way somewhere else. Hit play to hear a line strummed at a tempo typical of the style, or turn on Repeat and let it loop while you play along.
Western swing — Bob Wills' band voiced the 4 and 5 chords as 9ths all night.
Jump blues and soul-blues run the whole 12-bar on 9ths — fatter than a plain 7.
Dress the 5 chord as a 9 and the turnaround lands with a soul-record shine.
How to use the shapes
- The number on a dot is that note's job in the chord: 1 is the root, 3 the third, 5 the fifth. A flat sign marks a lowered tone — the ♭3 is what makes a minor chord sound minor.
- Major, minor, and 7th chords (dom 7, maj 7, min 7) show the five CAGED positions — the badge under each grid names the open chord the grip is borrowed from. One shape stays open; the other four are that grip moved up the neck. A few of the minor and 7th grips skip strings a full hand can't reach — the × marks show what to leave out.
- Every other quality gets the same badge wherever the shape earns it: an E-shape sus4 and an A-shape 6th are the plain open grips with one note moved. Expect fewer than five — the C and G shapes run out of fingers once a chord carries a 6th or a 9th, and the richest voicings (9ths, 13ths) come from jazz grips no open chord gives rise to. Those are still worth learning; they just go unbadged rather than get a label they haven't earned.
- The small greyed numbers under each grid are a suggested fingering — 1 is the index finger, 4 the little finger. They're only a suggestion, and they sit outside the grid on purpose: what a note is doing in the chord matters more than which finger presses it.
- Press ▶ on any grid to hear that exact voicing strummed.
- Learn the open position first, then the shape with the root on the 6th string, then the one rooted on the 5th — that trio covers most songs.
- Shapes with no open strings are movable: slide the whole grip up or down and the root string tells you which note names the chord.
- A long bar across the dots is a barre — one finger flattened over several strings.
Chords feel awkward at first? The Foundations path builds them up one finger at a time →
Chord voicings from the open-source chords-db project (MIT license).