Minor 6th chords: minor with a major sixth

The minor 6th chord is a minor chord with a twist: one note that turns a sad sound into a bittersweet, slightly mysterious one. Jazz players use it as their final minor chord, and it turns up all through bossa nova and gypsy jazz. It also has the most misleading name in the chord book, so the first thing to clear up is what the "6" actually is.

What a minor 6th chord is

Take a minor triad and add the major sixth above the root. The formula is 1, b3, 5, 6. Am6 is A, C, E, F#; Cm6 is C, Eb, G, A.

In "minor 6", the word minor refers to the third. The sixth is always a major sixth, nine half steps above the root. If you play a minor sixth instead, F natural over A, you get a different chord, written m(b6), with a much heavier and more dramatic sound.

What makes the m6 sound the way it does is the distance between its minor third and its major sixth: C up to F# in Am6 is a tritone, the most unstable interval in music, sitting inside a chord that otherwise feels at home. That tension inside a resting chord is the whole personality of the minor sixth.

The twin: m6 and the half-diminished chord

Every minor 6th chord has the same notes as the half-diminished chord a minor third below its root. Am6 is A, C, E, F#; F#m7b5 is F#, A, C, E. Cm6 is C, Eb, G, A; Am7b5 is A, C, Eb, G.

The bass note decides what you hear. With the root of the minor chord in the bass, the chord rests: it is a minor 6th. With the other note in the bass, it leans forward into a cadence: it is a half-diminished chord. That is why the same shape turns up under two names in chord books. The half-diminished chords page tells the story from the other side.

The shapes to learn

Three open minor 6th chords come almost for free. Em6 is an E minor with the second string moved up to C#. Am6 is an A minor with the fourth finger added on the first string. Dm6 is a D minor with the second string left open. Cm6 needs a small barre, and the last diagram is a movable compact shape with the root on the sixth string.

The compact shape mutes the fifth string with the underside of the finger on the sixth string, and it moves anywhere because it has no open string. The table gives its position for every natural root.

How to use minor 6th chords

The minor 6th is first of all a resolution chord in a minor key. Put a dominant seventh in front of it and let it land:

Then try it as a substitute. Wherever a minor chord lasts a full bar or more, play the minor 6th in its place and listen. It works best where a plain minor sounds too blunt and a minor seventh sounds too bluesy. The sixth also brings out the sound of the Dorian mode and of the melodic minor scale, the two minor scales with a major sixth, which is why the chord feels at home in jazz and bossa nova.

If the plain minor shapes are not yet automatic, spend a few days on the minor chords page first: every shape here is one of those with a single note added.