5DbFCEb
Fig. 1 · Dbmaj9 · hard

ukulele chord

D♭maj9

D♭1F3A♭5C7E♭9

A major seventh with a ninth on top.

Written the other way round it is C♯maj9 — the same twelve keys on a piano, a different piece of notation.

on guitaron pianothe scale

What is true of it

D♭maj9 is D♭, F, A♭, C and E♭ — 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 counted from D♭.

On an instrument that cannot reach all 5, the 5 and 1 go first, in that order.

The easiest of the 1 fingering below is 6586: 4 fingers, held at the 5th fret.

None of them uses an open string, so this chord moves up the neck unchanged — the same shape 1 fret higher is the chord a semitone above.

It leaves out the 5. 4 strings cannot carry 5 notes, and the 5 is the one this chord can lose without changing what it is.

Where its notes are on the neck

GCEA123456789101112571937193573571971935
Fig. 3 — first 12 frets

The brass dots are D♭, the root. Everything else is a chord tone with its degree printed in it.

With a different note underneath

10
first inversion

D♭maj9/F

acbb

second inversion

D♭maj9/A♭

1313

4
third inversion

D♭maj9/C

5546

An inversion is the same chord with a different note lowest. The name changes to a slash name because the bass is what a listener hears as the foundation.

D♭ in other shapes

D♭add9added ninthD♭9dominant ninthD♭m9minor ninthD♭majorD♭mminorD♭dimdiminished

Cmaj9Dmaj9D♯maj9E♭maj9Emaj9Fmaj9F♯maj9G♭maj9all 374