Colorful 5-Note Piano Chords: Major 9th Chords
Do You Use Major 9th chords in Your Piano Songs?
Here is a transcript of the video in case you would like to follow along: Good morning. This is Duane, and today I’d like to take up major 9th chords. The major 9th chord. We’ve covered 9th chords before, but I don’t think we’ve ever covered a major 9th chord. A major 9th chord is made out of the triad, of course, and the 9th. See, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, okay? But it also includes the major 7th, so it’s a 5 note chord like that.
Now, my hands are much too small. I can’t play that all at … my thumb can’t reach that D there, I can only reach an octave, okay? But if you have a larger hand, then of course you can play it in one hand. But I have to divide it up into two hands. Let me play a little bit of a 9th chord here. Whoops, forgot how it went.
That’s a major 9th chord, and I’m playing it in two hands, see? The right hand, the melody is D, which is a 9th of course, and I’m filling in the major 7th, 5th, and 3rd. In the left hand, I can play any of those notes I want. I’m playing C, D, E, G, B, okay? So that’s another way to play a major 9th, by the way. You can get it all in one hand by playing the 9th like that. I often play it in the right hand. Let me take a C major 9th, I add the 9th and the major 7th.
That doesn’t make sense, it sounds like a G6 chord, unless you establish the low root first. You’ve heard that kind of thing. Those are major 9ths, okay? So that’s all there is to it. It’s very simple. It’s just a stack of 3rds. You start on the root, go up to the 3rd, go up to the 5th, so that’s a major chord, right? Then you have a major 7th, not the dominant 7th, but the major 7th, the scale 7th. Then you add the 9th to it, okay?
Like I say, the 9th is going to be on top. It can be in the middle, whatever, you know? You just have to add that note, and that’s all there is to it. Let’s go through a couple other major 9th chords in other keys. Let’s try … let’s just do Db. So we have root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th. So if we’re playing in Db, it would sound like this. I once wrote a song that starts on 9th. Can’t even remember my own song, but you get the idea, okay? That’s a major 9th.
Let’s go to D. Root, 3rd, 5th, major 7th, 9th. Eb. Root, 3rd, 5th, major 7th, 9th. E. Root, 3rd, 5th, major 7th, 9th. F, which we already covered. Root, 3rd, 5th, major 7th, 9th. Gb, or F#. Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, little hard for me to reach that, and 9th, okay? G, let’s … Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th. Ab. Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th. A. Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th. Bb. Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th. B. Root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, okay?
That’s all there is. That’s all there is to major 9th chords. Like I say, you can play in a root position like that, or you can play it inverted, or get it all in your left hand like that, that works too. You need to develop your own voicing. You can take some ideas that I just gave you, but develop your own voicing and use those major 9ths. Because they do add a lot of interest to the song when you plug them in.
But like anything else, don’t overuse them. They’re just one tool in your toolbox to make your playing sound fuller and better. That’s it for today, but if you enjoy these piano tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips. We send them out most every day, and I think you’ll love them. So we’ll see you there. Bye bye for now.
Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBjk6fnidEU&feature=youtu.be
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