Ninth Chord
A seventh chord with a ninth stacked on top
Related
A ninth chord adds one more third above a seventh chord, making five notes: root, third, fifth, seventh and ninth. The common types are major, minor and dominant ninths, distinguished by their third and seventh; the dominant ninth, a major triad with a minor seventh and a major ninth, is the commonest.
The ninth is usually heard as colour. Performers often drop the fifth, or hand the root to the bass, but they normally keep the seventh; without it the chord becomes an added-tone chord. A flat ninth sharpens the tension and often resolves to the tonic or slides down chromatically.
A ninth chord is not simply a triad plus a ninth. That description fits an added-tone chord, which has no seventh; the ninth chord keeps its seventh and belongs to the extended seventh-chord family.
Sources
- 九和弦的构成与常见类型，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Chord"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.