Pete Wernick - Posted - 02/27/2026:  17:06:27

Glad to see the recent references to Bill Keith. He had a few pet licks that used 9ths, and was easily able to work them tastefully into his bluegrass playing. When he played in the Kweskin Jug Band, playing chordy/tenor style banjo, they were all over the place. But he made extended chords work tastefully in bluegrass, which I found inspirational. They not necessarily harder to play, they're just different-sounding and sometimes they're a perfect fit.

Sonny Osborne and Allen Shelton frequently used sixths and other extensions to ornament chords on slow songs but they didn't have the formal vocabulary to know their names. When I asked Allen about the chord he ended with on Lady of Spain, I noted that it was a 6th chord and I asked what he knew about chord theory. He didn't understand. Then he said, "Oh, you mean the plusses?" That's what he called them. Plus usually means an augmented 5th but that's what he called *all* chord extenstions. Both he and Sonny got ideas from pedal steel players. Sonny played a diminished chord lick on Making Plans.

Now let's bring EARL SCRUGGS into the picture. I've not seen him mentioned. On Lonesome Road Blues he uses a C9 AND a D-augmented. They use the same fingerings. To embellish the C chord, he plays 11th fret on the 2nd string (that's a 7th) and 12th fret on the 1st string (that's a 9th). Same C lick that JD uses on Aint Nobody Gonna Miss Me by Jimmy Martin, and Earl on Bugle Call Rag.

And believe it or not, those same 2 fingerings are a piece of a D-augmented chord that he uses on the way the the final G on *lots* of tunes, including Foggy Mt. Breakdown.

That crazy harmony Bill Monroe sings on Can't You Hear Me Calling? That's a major 7th.

Ralph on the raised note harmony on "true" in Think of What You've Done -- that's a 9th.

Reno playing a C with the open 1st string? That's a 9th. And sixths all over the place on his slow licks.

And the wonderful C in the chorus backup of Blue Ridge Cabin Home? That's Earl with his thumb fretting the 7th fret of the 5th string. That makes a C6, one of his prettiest licks ever. He uses it on every chorus of that song!

The point is, extended chords are used *all over the place* in trad bluegrass. Why? Cause they sound good. I think the non-trained musicians must have found some by accident, and used them without knowing their official names.

I was never trained in music theory but had friends who taught me about "adult chords" as we called them. I don't know a lot about altered chords, but in all my playing, certainly including everything I did with Hot Rize, they were just part of my vocabulary that I readily used -- and I hasten to add -- always with attention to good taste and fitting the feel of the song.

So the answer to the original question -- ABSOLUTELY they're used in bluegrass. Bluegrass absorbed a lot of influences including blues and early jazz. Just because they didn't know the names of the extended chords doesn't mean they weren't using them. They sure were and bluegrass is richer for it.

I use them as a way of sounding different, since so many bluegrass musicians aren't hip to ways of altering chords, and in trying to have a distinctive style, it's been a good road to take. It's important not to flash them like "hey, check THIS out", but they're much like spices in cooking and make good flavorings that can convey a variety of emotions. Most banjo players don't seem to think on those lines, but I recommend it. I bet there are some interesting spices in KY Fried Chicken, and there are 6ths, 9th, augmenteds and whatnot all over some of the most respected trad. bluegrass.

To learn more about how that's been done, I have a 2-video set called Branching Out on the Banjo where I show a lot of those "plusses" (and identify them by name). You'd all recognize some of those sounds in some of your favorite bluegrass.

Lew H - Posted - 02/27/2026:  17:58:29

Pete Wernick Great discussion of extended chords. I claw the banjo, but I use some too, without knowing what to call them.
FYI, I think Bill Keith also played pedal steel. At least I heard that somewhere. At a banjo camp, he said he started in childhood on piano. That plus the Kweskin Jug Band experience, he said gave him a lot of insights into chord types and structures. He was a favorite picker of mine.