Electric Bass: B 6/9 in the Changes

Where B 6/9 sits once the key is named, and what this seat is responsible for while it sounds.

B 6/9 chord diagram, starting at fret 6. Strings low to high: E 7th fret, A 6th fret, D 6th fret, G 6th fret.

B 6/9 is B – C# – D# – F# – G#. Naming the notes is where a chord chart stops. A tune asks the next question instead, and that is the one this page answers.

Nine times in ten a chart puts B 6/9 in the tonic's place, and the subdominant after that — so before working out a voicing, work out which key makes it that, because the key decides which notes the rest of the group has already taken.

The electric bass seat carries the amplified bottom — the same harmonic duty as the upright, played with a fingerboard that answers back and a sustain the room can hear over a backbeat. The chord tones are the same ones the upright would choose; what changes is that a note can be held through the bar instead of dying, so a line can lean on a chord rather than announce it.

Every shape is drawn for EADG across 4 strings, the open ones first and the movable ones up the neck after them, and each one plays back so you can hear the voicing before you commit it to a chorus.