Flat 9th Piano Chords – How To Use Them
Where Can I Use Flat 9th Chords?
Here is a transcript of the video if you would like to follow along: Good morning this is Duane, and today I’d like to talk about how to use flat 9th piano chords. People are kind of curious about that, that don’t use extended chords very much. They’re even a little reluctant (playing piano) to use 9th chords I’ve found, but flat 9th chords they’re very reluctant to use. (playing piano) I think it’s because they don’t know how to use them. So I’d like to shed a little light on the subject.
What a flat 9th chord does for the most part is it tightens the 7th chord. It just tightens. Listen to this progression. This is called a 5:1 chord progression. (playing piano) I’m playing G 7th chord to C. If I’m in the key of C I’m going from the 5-7 chord to the 1 chord. That’s a normal progression.
Now listen to this. If I flat the 9th instead of just playing that but use the 9th flat, that tightens it. (playing piano) It makes it more pregnant I guess is another way to say it. It wants to move even more. (playing piano) It’s the 7th that makes a chord want to move to the next upper 4th, but a flat 9th makes it want to move … It’s more urgent to move. (playing piano)
There’s a great song called, What’s New that starts on a flat 9th chord. Listen (piano music) and that flat 9th, I think it’s a beautiful chord. Anytime you’re playing a 5-7 chord you can just add the 9th if you’d like to, the flat 9th if you want to tighten it.
Let’s do it in some other key. Let’s say you’re at the key of F and obviously the 5:1 chord is C 7th-F right? The 9th would be what? (playing piano) You’d flatten the 9th there (playing piano). In the key of G, you’re in the key of G and the 5-7 chord is D 7th so the 9th would be there (playing piano). Obviously that works in any inversion. (playing piano)
Okay let’s go on into the key of D, say. (playing piano) We’re in the key of D and we’re on the 5 chord. (playing piano) and the 9th is here, flat 9th is there (playing piano). I guess we don’t have to do all the keys. Let’s do a couple more. E flat, (playing piano) we’re in the key of E flat so the 5-7 chord is B flat-E flat. (playing piano) We’ll just flatten the 9th. The flat ninth by the way is always the note a half step above the [inaudible 00:03:13] (playing piano) so that makes it very easy to find. In other words, if you’re playing a B flat chord, you just go up a half step from B flat (playing piano) and that’s the 9th, the flatted 9th, okay?
Let’s do one more I guess. (playing piano) Say the key of D flat. The 5 chord is A flat 7th so the flat 9th would be there (playing piano). I hope you’ll consider using the flat 9th chord once in a while in your playing because it does add an extra dimension. It adds color to your playing and it does tighten that 7th and makes it want to move you even more.
Just one of many ideas that I share with you every day from PlayPiano.com. These are free tips and if you enjoy these free tips, come on over to Play Piano and sign up for this series. I’ll tell you, if you listen to these tips for a year you’re going to pick up a lot of good stuff. Some you’ll use, some you won’t use, but it all adds up. It goes into the mix. It’ll make you a more interesting piano player.
That’s it for today. Thanks for being with me and do come on over and sign up for our series. Thanks. See you there. Bye-Bye.
Here is the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBvSmMifoi0
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