Song Help Request Suitable substitutions for D9b chord.

Hi,

I am trying to figure out some old danish jazz tunes, and the chords sure are exotic!

One thing is the Aø chord - which I have dechiffered as being the same as Am7b5, in old danish writing. Perhaps it is the same in german? I don't know.

The song I am looking at also have three different "X"9b chords.
I assume that this means lowering the a 9th a semi-tone. With the range of a reentrant ukulele, playing a note and the lowered 9th at the same time is not that easy. The lowered 9th is not the melody note when the chord is played.

What would be a good decision here? Playing a "X"7 chord in stead? Omitting the prime note to get to a frettable chord? Other suggestions?

If I understand you correctly, while a D9=D F# A C E, the D9b=D F# A C D#

Since D9 is a five-note chord, it is common to play it on the ukulele by omitting either the first of the fifth degree. If we omit the first degree, then D9 would be played as 2423. And D9b would be 2323.


To be honest, to my ear the difference between D9 and D9b are so subtle that I would just play D9 and save myself the trouble of figuring out the flatted ninth.

Lots of options. It's probably a passing chord so you may not have to play it at all - just stay on the previous chord longer or go to the next early. 7th chord could also work. Or rootless and/or fifth-less variations as ripock suggests. Really depends on context.

Thanks for the input, I will try to ommit the root and look up the resulting chord by looking for he dimished form of the next half tone chord.

It should work!

You could try pootling around until you find a sound that works. I often have no idea of the name of some shapes I play up the neck but if it works that is fine by me.