Minor 6th Chords: Root, Flat 3rd, 5th & 6th

What Are Minor 6th Chords?

Good morning. This is Duane. We looked first at 3-note chords at triads and we went through all the triads that there are. We said that there’s 4 different kinds of triads. There’s Major triads, minor triads, diminished triads, and augmented triads. Then we graduated to 4-note chords last time I recorded, and we took up 6 chords, where we added the 6th degree of the scale to the Major triad.

Today, we’re going to do the same thing except we’re going to add the 6th degree of scale to the minor triad, so we simply have, there’s C minor and if I go up to add the 6th degree of the scale, that’s C minor 6th chords. The 6th adds a degree of tension to the chord, doesn’t it? To the feeling that you get out of the chord.

Let’s go through the 12 Major chords and make them all minor 6ths. There’s F Major. To make it minor, of course, I lower the 3rd and to add the 6th I do that. That’s the F minor 6th. Here’s G Major, G minor, G minor 6th. D Major, D minor, D minor 6th. Notice that’s all white. E Major, E minor, now where’s the 6th? Can’t be there, can it, because we have to go up a whole step. 6ths are always a whole step above the 5th, so we go up to there, so that’s E minor 6th.

Here’s A Major, A minor, A minor 6th. D flat Major, D flat minor, D flat minor 6th. E flat Major, E flat minor, E flat minor 6th. A flat Major, A flat minor, A flat minor 6th. G flat Major, G flat minor, G flat minor 6th. B Major, B minor, B minor 6th. B flat Major, B flat minor, and B flat minor 6th.

Okay, so that adds another dimension to our playing, so instead of just playing minor chords, now we can add a 6th which gives them that additional flavor that you just don’t get without adding that 6th.

That’s it for today, and come on back tomorrow and we’ll take up, we’ll begin 7th chords, I believe, which is another kind of 4-note chord. There are several different kinds of 7th chords, so that’ll take a while to walk through. If you enjoy this series, come on over to PlayPiano.com and sign up for our series of instructional videos and instructional text and audios, and so on.

The 6th adds a degree of tension to the chord, doesn’t it? To the feeling that you get out of the chord.