How to Play Major 9th Chords on the Guitar

Hey! I'm Nate Savage. In this lesson, we’re going to take about we’ve learned about seventh chords and take it one step further and learn how to build a Ninth chord, a Major 9th Chord.

So all we’re going to do say for instance, if we had a C major seventh chord. All we’re going to do is take our CM7 chord and add another third to the top of that from our B. B is the 7th of a C. we’re going to take a third above B, a minor third above B. and tag that note onto it which should be a D.

So, here’s a good voicing for a major 9th chord. Take your middle finger, put it on the third fret of you’re A string, at your C note, at the root of your chord. Take your index finger and play an E on the second fret of your D string that will be on the third of your chord. And I will take your ring finger and put it on the third fret having your E string. That’s going to be the 9th of your chord. That’s going to be your D. and finally, take your pinky and put it on the fourth fret of your G string. That’s going to be your Major 7th. You’re seventh of the chord. Play just those four notes.

[Demonstration]

So that’s how major 9th chords are made, just going to stack another minor third from the seventh of the chord on the major seventh chord on top. You will notice we’re missing a note we’ll have four notes in there.

In the major 9th chord, there are five notes. There’s the C, E, G, B, and a D. a lot of times, when you’re playing chords like this, they can tend to get thick and have a lot of notes in them. What you do is just lead out the fifth because it’s really a strong note and you don’t necessarily need in there.

So take those notes. C, E, G, B, and D and see if you can come up to your own voicing for some major 9th chords.


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