Am6 guitar chord
The third voice from the top lowered an octave. The dropped voice becomes the bass, which is why a string is skipped.
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About Am6 — drop 3 voicings
Am6 is A, C, E and F# — Am with a major sixth added on top.
It sounds bittersweet — minor underneath, major on top. The major sixth over a minor triad comes from the melodic minor, and it is the classic jazz minor tonic.
Am6 notes and formula
| A | C | E | F# |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 |
Minor tonic — an ending chord in a minor key.
Also written Amin6, A-6 or A minor 6. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Am6
The same operation one voice further down: the third voice from the top falls an octave and becomes the bass.
That leaves a bigger hole under the top three notes, so a string gets skipped: the muted string in the middle is the shape, not a mistake.
Am6 has 9 of them, on strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: A in the bass, C in the bass, E in the bass and F# in the bass. The one to learn first is the F# shape at the nut.
5 of them sit on strings 6-4-3-2, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with x3425x — no barre and down at the nut. 1 of the 10 shapes here sits in open position. 5 of the 10 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x02212 | open position | A, root position | F# | barred |
| xx2212 | 1st fret | E, 2nd inversion | F# | barred |
| x3425x | 2nd fret | C, 1st inversion | E | all fretted |
| 5x4555 | 4th fret | A, root position | A | barred |
| 577575 | 5th fret | A, root position | A | barred |
| xx7978 | 7th fret | A, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-12-10-11-10-12 | 10th fret | A, root position | E | all fretted |
| x-12-14-11-13-x | 11th fret | A, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-12-14-x-13-14 | 12th fret | A, root position | F# | all fretted |
| x-x-14-14-13-14 | 13th fret | E, 2nd inversion | F# | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell, 14 drop 2 and 6 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Am6, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (B) and the 11 (D).
How to use Am6
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Am6 is Bm7♭5 to E7♭9: the ii and the V of A minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Am6 belongs to E minor (the iv, the subdominant) and G major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Am6
Every note of Am6 is in A dorian, A melodic minor and A half-whole diminished.
Chords near Am6
Change one note of Am6 and you have Am (drop the sixth), Adim7 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Am69 (add the ninth), Am7 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), AmMaj7 (the sixth becomes a major seventh) or Amadd9 (the sixth becomes a ninth).
Am6 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Am6’s sound and use this page follows Mark Levine, The Jazz Piano Book (Sher Music, 1989). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.