C Minor 9 Guitar Chord Lesson

In the following post, you will learn how to play the C Minor 9 Guitar Chord (also known as Cm9,Cmin9) with this free tutorial.

The Cm9 Guitar Chord is found by locating the 1,b3, 5, b7 and 9 positions (C, Eb, G, Bb, and D) of the C Major Scale : C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. If you aren’t familiar with the b3 and b7 symbols, no worries, I will explain. The b3 symbol simply means that we look for the third step of the C Major Scale and we flatten it by 1/2 step, giving us our “Eb” note.  For the “b7” symbol we simply look for the seventh step of the C Major scale and we flatten that by 1/2 step, giving us our “Bb” note.  There are three different versions of the C Minor 9 chord to learn within this post. This is an advanced guitar chord, so if you haven’t been playing for very long, you may find this a bit challenging.  Please see the chord charts below.  Be sure to also check out the video demonstration of the Cm9 chord as played on the 8th fret below.  Enjoy!

So the notes of the Cm9 Chord are: C, Eb, G, Bb, and D

Here is a key that will help you read the chart:

Everything on the above chart should be self explanatory, except for the last three in the third column. They may need a bit of explaining. The O, or open symbol, simply means that you do not press down on any notes on that string. The X means you do not strum that particular string. The Barre symbol means you need to barre that particular fret. When you barre a fret you are pressing down on multiple strings at the same time with one finger.

C Minor 9 Guitar Chord Video Demonstration

Chord Playing Tips

Be sure that you are pressing down on the strings hard enough and play each string one at a time to make sure you have a nice clean sound. If any of the strings buzz or sound muted, then something is not right.