How to Play and Use Dominant 9 Chords on Guitar Video Lecture - The Ultimate

the dominant nine aside from being the
nickname I gave to the years it took me
to finish college it's also a very
important chord that should be in every
guitar players vocabulary so we're
learning how to play them and maybe
where to play them and how they can be
used in a progression right so first of
all a dominant nine chord the chord
spelling for that is a 1 a 3 a 5 a flat
seven and a nine right so basically what
that means is we take the major scale we
take the 1 3 5 flat 7 which those 4
notes make a dominant 7 chord we're
going to add the 9th right so the
example were going to use going to be in
the key of G so the notes of gr g a b c
d e f sharp g so to make a G dominant 7
we have the 1 the 3 the 5 and instead of
having the 7 which is an f-sharp Ergon
flattening to make it a half right so we
have a G a B a D and F and then we have
to add 9 so really once you go around
the 9 is actually the same thing as the
- except it's higher right so an A so G
B a D and half and a in G make AG
dominant 9 right now where you use it
down to 9 chord is actually never on the
1 chord if you're sticking by the rules
right so it occurs on the 5 so if we
stay in the key of G this is actually
the 5s cord and in the key of g g a b c
d d is the fifth no right so if we take
all the notes from the key of g and
apply them to the d rooted chord we end
up getting a D dominant 9 now the voice
we're going to use right now as you look
like this we're gonna do kind of true
the same thing right so I would say
maybe the most common down to 9 voicing
you'll see it looks like this I've got
my middle finger on 5a my pointer finger
on 4d my ring finger on 5 G and my pinky
on 5b right so as we just talked about a
down to 9 Qureshi has five distinctly
separate notes and this only has four
right
so with this voicing we're actually
implying the 5 we have the 1 the 3 the
flat seven and the nine
but we don't have a five so we're
implying the fifth note in this chord
now what we can do pretty easily semi
easily it is add the five right here so
what I'm doing now is I'm borrowing the
bottom three strings to get actually the
one the three the flat seven to nine and
the five all in one progression so I
have very kind of complex chords is a
lot going on in a tight voicing but I do
think in most cases it's worth getting
your ring finger barred down like then
to add the five into the chord right
where we use this chord in a progression
right now we could just replace any
chord where you see the five so a
regular progression in G let's do a one
six four five progressions this is G
major E minor C major D major right so
if we're just from it one six four
five now you'll notice playing the five
chord is always going to kind of beg for
some resolution back to the one now the
thing that makes these core is dominant
is that it's going to be requiring more
resolution to makes a little more tense
right that's why the Dominus seven is a
very blue blue Z chord right so if we
have a gia to Atia to a see
to a dominant seven you can't really
leave it there there's too much tension
you got to release that with the one
chord right now we're going to get a
similar effect but in a little bit of a
different way if we take a dominant nine
seven ominous seven right so let's do
the other voicing G now you might notice
that it's kind of coming at it a little
bit different way right so again a seven
dominant seven to its resolution versus
a dominant nine to its resolution I
would say I mean just in my personal
opinion maybe down to seven is a little
more bluesy whereas down to nine is a
little more playful kind of mellow I
suppose and one of the reasons that it
is Mela is if we look at this voicing
again right here now let's take the
route away from here so we just have the
bottom four strings
this is actually a minor 7 flat 5 or a
half diminished chord which I did a
separate video on if I check that out
I'll link you to it but that definitely
is asking it for the one chord to come
round because this right here if we have
a Down line without the root note we're
getting a 7 chord the 7th chord in the
scale alright so this is actually F
sharp half diminished which just begs
for that one chord to come save it so
it's really almost the same thing it's
kind of that minor 7 flat 5 half
diminished chord is talking inside of a
dominant 9 right now one other thing
that I like to do sometimes is maybe
taking a chord and changing it between
being like the one the 5 chord so what I
mean by that is if we took a 9 chord but
we're starting on the 1 all right so
let's take E and we take a major 9 right
this has a major 7 not a flat 7 it
sounds like this now for you to change
that into a domino 9 it sounds like that
right so one chord the 5 chord you can
kind of go back and forth screams you
it's like a very mellow title chill
thing to do you know you know where this
is going
hey girl Oh what is this is just a
couple chords I'm playing I'm playing
the one when I play the five I'm know
you have to come find out
but anyways enough of that I also want
to do a quick arpeggio of how you do
this right so in arpeggio just playing
it one note at a time let's actually
root it on a B let's do something
different right so we have one a major
third a five a flat seven so there's as
a dominant seven arpeggio now I said
that 9 1 3 5 flat 7 9 is right there
right you could just go up a major 3rd
from that flat 7 but what I want to do
is actually play the major 3rd on the
same string so we're a little higher
over here so we have the root a major
3rd on the same string it's gonna be a
forefront reach right here so 1 major
3rd 5 flat 7 so it kind of makes this
symmetrical type kind of like X shape
right we have now the arpeggio in order
would be a 1 3 5 flat 7 9 you'd even
kind of slide into last one like so it
just kind of shows you like if we if we
kind of break it down if we start on the
3rd we have these stacked minor thirds
which kind of gives it a little bit of
that ambiguity whatever you want to
however you want to describe it to me
it's kind of hard to find a word to
describe a dominant 9 chord but anyways
I personally use them in my own playing
and progressions almost as a replacement
for dominant 7 chords I feel like the 7
chord is not dominant enough so I will
always insert a 9 chord whenever I see a
7 chord in a lot of different cases and
stuff like that right now you don't
always have to use them just on the 5
chord you can easily use them on the 4
chord 2 to kind of make it even that
much more dominant so if we have that
like a similar progression like a G
- a C - a deal
we could turn both this is a one four
five progression we go to the four and
the five and dominant 9s that would be
like a June very bluesy thing that you
can do with that right so really it's
not that difficult of a chord if to add
into your vocabulary feel free to try
them out wherever again most commonly
you'll find them on the fifth degree of
any scale but there we go
dominant nine chords