F# 7b9 — Dobro

F# 7b9 is F# – G – A# – C# – E, and no bar position on the dobro's GBDGBD strings sounds all of it — not straight across any fret, not on any short slant.

When a tune calls it anyway, the dobro plays the part of the chord a bar can reach, or a single-string line through it, and leaves the guitar and the mandolin to carry the rest. That is ordinary work for this seat, not a failure of it, and nothing is drawn here because a grip the bar cannot hold would be a lie.

F# is the vii° of G, the vi of A, the V of B and the iii of D, so the caller will still count it — the seat just answers it with fewer strings.