Cm6 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 Cm6 — drop 3 voicings
Cm6 is C, Eb, G and A — Cm 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.
Cm6 notes and formula
| C | Eb | G | A |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 |
Minor tonic — an ending chord in a minor key.
Also written Cmin6, C-6 or C minor 6. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Cm6
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.
Cm6 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: C in the bass, Eb in the bass, G in the bass and A in the bass. The one to learn first is the G 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 x3524x — no barre and down at the nut. None of the shapes for Cm6 uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 3 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x31213 | 1st fret | C, root position | G | all fretted |
| x3524x | 2nd fret | C, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x35x45 | 3rd fret | C, root position | A | all fretted |
| xx5545 | 4th fret | G, 2nd inversion | A | barred |
| x6758x | 5th fret | Eb, 1st inversion | G | all fretted |
| 8x7888 | 7th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| 8-10-10-8-10-8 | 8th fret | C, root position | C | barred |
| x-x-10-12-10-11 | 10th fret | C, root position | Eb | all fretted |
| x-15-13-14-13-15 | 13th fret | C, root position | G | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 6 shell, 15 drop 2 and 2 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Cm6, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (D) and the 11 (F).
How to use Cm6
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Cm6 is Dm7♭5 to G7♭9: the ii and the V of C minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Cm6 belongs to G minor (the iv, the subdominant) and Bb major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Cm6
Every note of Cm6 is in C dorian, C melodic minor and C half-whole diminished.
Chords near Cm6
Change one note of Cm6 and you have Cm (drop the sixth), Cdim7 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Cm69 (add the ninth), Cm7 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), CmMaj7 (the sixth becomes a major seventh) or Cmadd9 (the sixth becomes a ninth).
Cm6 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Cm6’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.