The Ninth Chord

If one chord shape says funk, it is the ninth. A dominant seventh with the ninth stacked on top, played as a compact grip in the middle of the guitar with whatever you are not using muted.

It works because it is small. A full six-string barre chord is too much sound for music that needs air in it. A ninth voicing sits in the middle of the neck, leaving the bass to the bass player and the top end to whoever is singing.

Start with the open E9. It is the shape you have heard on a thousand records, and the quickest way to get the sound into your ear.

E9

The open E9. Learn it for the sound, not for moving around — those open strings pin it to E.

That is the problem with the open shape: open strings do not move, so it only ever gives you an E9.

What you want next is the closed version — the same chord type with no open strings in it, rooted on the fifth string. Learn that one grip and you have a ninth chord at every fret, which is what a funk part in an unfamiliar key actually needs.

The chart below shows it at the second fret, where it happens to be a B9.

B9

B9 — the movable grip, rooted on the fifth string. Nothing open, so it slides anywhere.

The same grip at three frets

Your fifth-string finger is the root: fret 7 makes it E9, fret 12 makes it A9, fret 2 makes it B9. The sixth string stays muted throughout.

e
B
G
D
A
E

--7-------12------2-------|
--7-------12------2-------|
--7-------12------2-------|
--6-------11------1-------|
--7-------12------2-------|
--x-------x-------x-------|

This track is a twelve-bar form in E played funk, moving between E7, A and B7. Play a ninth chord wherever the chart calls for a dominant.

Take two passes, and do them differently. First time through, use the open E9 and find what you can on the A and B chords. Second time through, use only the movable grip, sliding between frets 7, 12 and 2 as the changes go by.

Keep the sixteenth-note hand from lesson one. Two or three pressed hits per bar is plenty.

Twelve-bar funk in E. Watch the changes scroll and shift the one shape to match.