Tatum fingerings: Dominant 9th chords - Gb9 to G9

Now we've come halfway round the cycle from C to F# - or is it Gb? We don't use the key of Cb major all that often, but I still seem to think of it more as a Gb9 myself. It's whether you like having Bb and Fb instead of A# and E. In this 'borderline' territory between sharps and flats, arrangers always should go with the simplest solution. It's OK to use the more common enharmonic names.

Gb9:

Thumb on the Bb & E, tritone.

If you prefer to see it as an F#9, here it is in the key of B:

B9:

Thumb on the D# & A, tritone again.

E9:

Thumb on the D. This one needs the 4th finger as a pivot on the B to D (4-1).

These excerpts are simply to show my current fingerings, not intended as any kind of specific drill or exercise. The only important point I would stress when practicing them is to play them in time, slow medium and fast, semiquavers or triplets. But they should relate to the basic pulse, they should always be recognizable subdivisions, at least in practice sessions.

To reiterate on the bigger musical picture: all this work on runs amounts musically to fractions of seconds in actual performance, when playing (jazz) time. If playing rubato, of course the runs can be extended or stretched out. But to my mind, the run is all about gesture, not something to be itself 'noteworthy' - pun intended!

A9:

Thumb on B and E, 3-2 pivot.

D9:

Same fingering as A9.

G9:

This one is quite difficult; I think the key (pun unintended) is to feel the pivot between 3 & 2.

That concludes all the Tatum dominant 9th chords fingerings. In future posts we'll be looking at the more exciting 13ths, and some of the variations possible in mixing and matching these ideas.