B dominant 9th chord

Playing it

There’s no open-string way to play B9 on guitar with the root in the bass, so the standard shape is a barre across the 7th fret (797879).

On piano, B9 has three black keys (D♯, F♯ and C♯) and two white keys. In root position it spans more than an octave, so many pianists play the root with the left hand and the rest with the right.

On ukulele the usual B9 shape is 2324, using four fingers. It leaves out the root, which a bass player (or your ear) fills in.

Related chords

Move a single note and B9 becomes a different chord: drop the C♯ for B7, drop the A for Badd9, raise A to A♯ for Bmaj9 and lower D♯ to D for Bm9.