9GbBbbFbAb
Fig. 1 · Gbm9 · hard

ukulele chord

G♭m9

G♭1B♭♭♭3D♭5F♭♭7A♭9

A minor seventh with a ninth on top.

Written the other way round it is F♯m9 — the same twelve keys on a piano, a different piece of notation.

on guitaron pianothe scale

What is true of it

G♭m9 is G♭, B♭♭, D♭, F♭ and A♭ — 1, b3, 5, b7 and 9 counted from G♭.

B♭♭ is a double flat, and it has to be: every letter from G♭ upwards is used once, so the b3 cannot be written any other way.

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 b9cb: 4 fingers, held at the 9th 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

GCEA1234567891011129b35b715b719b3b719b35b7b35b719b3
Fig. 3 — first 12 frets

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

With a different note underneath

first inversion

G♭m9/B♭♭

2440

second inversion

G♭m9/D♭

6440

third inversion

G♭m9/F♭

x440

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.

G♭ in other shapes

G♭add9added ninthG♭9dominant ninthG♭maj9major ninthG♭majorG♭mminorG♭dimdiminished

Cm9C♯m9D♭m9Dm9D♯m9E♭m9Em9Fm9all 374