About Ab6 — drop 3 voicings
Ab6 is Ab, C, Eb and F — Ab with a major sixth added on top.
It sounds warm, and finished without being sweet. It closes a tune as firmly as the triad does but without the maj7’s shine, which is why so many standards end on one.
Ab6 notes and formula
| Ab | C | Eb | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
Tonic — an ending chord.
Also written Abmaj6, AbM6 or Ab major 6. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Ab6
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.
Ab6 has 9 of them, on strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: Ab in the bass, C in the bass, Eb in the bass and F in the bass. The one to learn first is the C 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 4x354x — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. None of the shapes for Ab6 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 4 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x31111 | 1st fret | C, 1st inversion | F | barred |
| 433111 | 1st fret | Ab, root position | F | barred |
| 131141 | 1st fret | F, 6th in the bass | F | barred |
| 4x354x | 3rd fret | Ab, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| 4x6564 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| 46x564 | 4th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| xx6868 | 6th fret | Ab, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-11-10-10-9-x | 9th fret | Ab, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x-11-13-13-13-13 | 11th fret | Ab, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 shell and 14 drop 2 voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Ab6, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (Bb) and the #11 (D).
How to use Ab6
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Ab6 is Bbm7 to Eb7 — the ii and the V of Ab — and Eb7 shares its third and seventh with Bbm7, so the hand barely moves between them.
In which keys. Every note of Ab6 belongs to C minor (the ♭VI), C# major (the V), Eb major (the IV), F minor (the ♭III), Ab major (the I) and Bb minor (the ♭VII).
What to play over Ab6
Every note of Ab6 is in Ab major pentatonic, Ab major, Ab lydian, Ab mixolydian and Ab lydian dominant.
Chords near Ab6
Change one note of Ab6 and you have Ab (drop the sixth), Abmaj7 (the sixth becomes a major seventh), Abm6 (the major third becomes a minor third), Abadd9 (the sixth becomes a ninth), Ab69 (add the ninth) or Ab7 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh).
Ab6 is a major chord — root, major third, fifth. Major chords on every root.
On Ab6’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.