Cmaj9 is C, E, G, B and D. It keeps every note of and adds the .
Cmaj9 can fill the same major-tonic role as , with both the major 7th and 9th.
Cmaj9 and both contain the 9th; only Cmaj9 contains .
Hear the 9th by comparing with Cmaj9.
One repeated root rises two frets to the 9th. Every other note stays the same.
Also written CM9, CΔ9, Cma9 or C major 9.
Drop the third voice from the top an octave instead. The wider gap skips a string, so the muted string is part of the shape.
That result, 3–R–5–7, is the shape usually meant by drop 3. Named by its bass note, as the inversions are here, it is the 1st inversion.
More familiar jazz shapes are drop 3 than drop 2.
At the end of a jazz ii–V–I, Cmaj9 is the usual landing rather than a bare major seventh. The top voice that was the ii’s ninth and the V’s thirteenth steps down onto the ninth.
Listen for: The top voice holds through the ii and V, then falls a whole step to the ninth. On the maj7 it stays where it is, as the third.
A minor-key tune can cadence on Cmaj9 instead of the i, a softer landing a step below D. The ♭VII’s root doesn’t move: it becomes the ninth.
Listen for: The root of the ♭VII holds as the ninth while the other voices step. On the maj7 it has to fall a whole step to the root.
Heard in“Eight Miles High”“You Showed Me”
In which keys. Every note of Cmaj9 belongs to C major, E minor, G major and A minor.
Contains Cmaj9 and adds eleventh and thirteenth.
Contains Cmaj9 and adds sharp eleventh and thirteenth.
The common shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in how this site is built.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.