E Minor 9th Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It

There is exactly one place in the first four frets of a guitar where the F♯ that turns an E minor seventh into an Em9 can go, and it is worth working out rather than being told. F♯ appears three times down there: sixth string 2nd fret, fourth string 4th fret, first string 2nd fret. Use the sixth string and the root leaves the bass. Use the fourth string and the open D goes with it, and since that D is the chord’s seventh, what comes back is E minor with an added ninth and no seventh at all. Only the first string is free. Fret it at the 2nd and the answer is 0 2 0 0 0 2: E, B, D, G, B and F♯ from the bottom up, two fingers down, four strings open, every note of the chord present with only the fifth doubled.

Two consequences follow, and both are unusual. The fretted notes sit at the same fret on the two outermost strings, so the hand has to arch over four ringing strings and cannot barre anything. Lay the finger flat across the 2nd fret instead and the fourth, third and second strings sound E, A and C♯, and the chord is gone. The second consequence is that this shape is not open E minor with something added. Open E minor frets the fourth string, and Em9 needs that string open for its seventh, so the two are relatives through Em7 rather than directly.

What comes out is a chord whose ninth is the top voice by a clear fifth, a long way above everything else, which is why the F♯ registers as colour rather than as another note in the pile.

Try It: Em9 in the Chord Finder

Set the root to E and the scale to Natural Minor, then switch the Ninth row on and look at the first degree. Change the scale to Dorian and the tonic chord is unchanged, which is the first clue about what this chord will and will not tell you.

The Notes of Em9

Em9 is Em7 with a major 9th on top:

E, G, B, D and F♯

Four white keys and one black. The ninth is major even though the chord is minor, which catches people out on paper: the flattened degrees in a minor ninth chord are the third and the seventh, and the ninth is left alone. F♯ is also the only sharp in E minor’s key signature, so nothing here is borrowed.

How Em9 Is Built

Em7, which is E, G, B and D, with F♯ added a whole step above the root and sounded high enough to be a ninth rather than a second. Nothing needs leaving out at this size, and in the open form nothing is. For what happens once the stack goes past the ninth, see the extended chords guide.

Two identities are worth carrying around. Drop the root and the four notes remaining, G, B, D and F♯, are Gmaj7: Em9 is a Gmaj7 with an E underneath it, note for note. Drop the seventh instead and the remaining E, G, B and F♯ spell E minor with an added ninth, which the guitar makes easy at 0 2 4 0 0 0, though the F♯ then lands a semitone below the open G string. That rub is the one thing this chord can get wrong, and the reason the full voicing puts the ninth two octaves clear of the third.

Em9 on the Piano

The right hand does not have to think about this as a ninth chord at all. Put E in the left hand, play G, B, D and F♯ with the right using fingers 1, 2, 3 and 5, and all five notes are sounding. The right hand is holding a Gmaj7 shape: three white keys and one black.

The black one is the point. F♯ under the little finger is the only key in the chord that sits back from the front edge, so it is the only landmark the hand gets, and it is the exact note that separates Em9 from Em7. Everything else can be found by counting alternate white keys upwards from E. The one note you have to reach in for is the one doing the work.

Right hand: G, B, D and F♯ with 1, 2, 3 and 5.

Left hand: E on its own, or E and B a fifth above it.

If nobody else is covering the bass, put E and D in the left hand, a minor seventh apart, and leave G, B and F♯ to the right: wide intervals underneath, close ones above, which is what the extended chords guide recommends for anything voiced low.

Em9 on the Guitar

Past the open shape, three grips cover most of what this chord is asked to do.

2 2 0 0 0 0 keeps every open string and moves both fretted notes to the sixth and fifth strings at the 2nd fret, where one index finger covers the pair. F♯ becomes the bass and the open top E becomes the highest note, so the same five notes arrive in fourth inversion. It is the shape for a bass line walking down from G, because it puts the passing note inside the chord instead of underneath it.

x 7 5 7 7 x is the movable version, root on the fifth string at the 7th fret, fifth omitted: E, G, D and F♯. Index on the fourth string at the 5th fret, middle on the fifth string at the 7th, ring finger flattened across the third and second strings at the 7th. Add the first string at the 7th fret, giving x 7 5 7 7 7, and the B comes back on top.

x x 5 4 3 2 is the Gmaj7 grip on the top four strings, for playing over somebody else’s E. Every string sits at a different fret, which makes it the cleanest of the three.

Inversions

Near the nut a guitar offers root position and the fourth inversion and refuses the rest, for a mundane reason. The only cheap E down there is the open sixth string, so putting another note underneath means fretting one of the two lowest strings and finding the root somewhere else. F♯ manages it, because the open first string is an E. G, B and D do not. A keyboard moves through all five without comment, and the guide to chord inversions and voice leading covers what each one is good for.

Voicings

• Open form, 0 2 0 0 0 2, all five notes, two fingers, four strings ringing.
• Fourth inversion, 2 2 0 0 0 0, F♯ in the bass, one finger across the two lowest strings.
• No fifth, movable, x 7 5 7 7 x, root on the fifth string at the 7th fret.
• Rootless, x x 5 4 3 2, a Gmaj7 grip over an E supplied by somebody else.
• Piano split, E and D in the left hand, G, B and F♯ in the right.

Keep F♯ above G. Bring the ninth down into the octave where the third is living and the two are a semitone apart, which is the only clash this chord can produce.

Which Keys Contain Em9

• degree 1 (I) of E natural minor
• degree 1 (I) of E dorian
• degree 2 (II) of D major
• degree 6 (VI) of G major
• degree 4 (IV) of B natural minor
• degree 4 (IV) of B harmonic minor

E natural minor and E Dorian disagree only about the sixth degree, C against C♯, and Em9 contains no sixth at all, so the chord cannot settle it. Neither can Em11. Push the stack as far as Em13 and the question is finally answered, because that thirteenth is C♯.

The two B minor scales work the same way at the other end of the chord: they disagree about the seventh degree, A against A♯, and Em9 contains neither. D major and G major hold the chord as ii and vi, and between them they account for most of the times a guitarist plays it without thinking of it as a minor chord at all.

Where Em9 Shows Up

As the iv of B minor. i, iv9, V7, i: Bm, Em9, F♯7, Bm. The dominant here needs A♯ and the melody over the tonic will be using A natural, and the two can sit in the same eight bars without argument because the chord between them contains neither. Minor key writing for film and television leans on that: a sustained fourth degree with a ninth on it will hold under a line whatever that line is doing with the seventh.

As the vi of G major. Moving from Gmaj7 to Em9 costs a keyboard player nothing at all. The right hand holds G, B, D and F♯ through both chords and the bass drops from G to E, and that is the entire change. Pop and soul arrangements use the pair as a two chord bed for whole sections precisely because there is nothing to play: the keyboard sustains, the bass does the harmony, and whether the bar is a Gmaj7 or an Em9 is the bass player’s decision.

As the tonic of a minor loop. i9, VI, iv7, v7: Em9, Cmaj7, Am7, Bm7. House, downtempo and sample based production default to this shape of loop, and the reason the first chord is Em9 and not Em7 is arithmetic. Every note in those four chords belongs to C major except one, and that one is the F♯. Take it away and the loop is a handful of C major chords that happen to begin in the wrong place.

The limit is the cadence. Em9’s seventh is D natural, and the moment a passage in E minor wants a real dominant it raises that D to D♯ inside a B7. Hold an Em9 through the change and the two rub at a semitone, which is survivable but rarely intended. E harmonic minor has no room for this chord at all, so treat it as a chord for the stretches between cadences.

Related Chords

• E Minor 7th Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It is the four note chord underneath, and the same open shape with the first string left as it comes.
• G Major 7th Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It is Em9 without its root, note for note.
• E Dominant 9th Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It carries the same F♯ over a major third and a flattened seventh, and behaves nothing like this.
• E Minor 6th Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It adds C♯ to the triad instead, which answers the question about the sixth degree that Em9 leaves open.
• E Minor Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It is the triad at the bottom of all of it.

Learn More

• Extended Chords: Which Tensions Work, and How to Voice Them covers which notes get dropped, why minor chords take extensions so easily, and how rootless voicings work.
• Seventh Chords: A Complete Guide to maj7, min7, dom7, and More covers the m7 chord this one extends.
• Chord Inversions and Voice Leading explains the motionless right hand in the G major example above.
• E Dorian Scale: Notes, Chords, and How to Play It takes this chord as its tonic and answers the sixth degree question the other way.