Fm6 guitar chord
Root, third and seventh: the guide tones fix the quality, so the fifth is dropped. That is what leaves a string free, so pick a tension to put on top.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Fm6 — shell voicings
Fm6 is F, Ab, C and D — Fm 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.
Fm6 notes and formula
| F | Ab | C | D |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 | 6 |
Minor tonic — an ending chord in a minor key.
Also written Fmin6, F-6 or F minor 6. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Fm6
Root, third and seventh. The third and seventh, the guide tones, are what make the chord major, minor or dominant, so the fifth can go: it says nothing the symbol needs.
Three notes means a spare string, which is the real point. Put a tension on it.
Fm6 has 7 of them, on the low-middle three, the bottom three strings, strings 6-4-3 and strings 5-3-2, from open position up to the 12th — all in one inversion, so the bass note never moves. The one to learn first is the F shape at the 6th fret, which is the easiest grip here.
Start with xx3534 — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. 4 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 13th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1x0111 | open position | F, root position | F | barred |
| 133131 | 1st fret | F, root position | F | barred |
| xx3534 | 3rd fret | F, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x86768 | 6th fret | F, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-8-10-7-9-x | 7th fret | F, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| x-8-10-x-9-10 | 8th fret | F, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-x-10-10-9-10 | 9th fret | C, 2nd inversion | D | barred |
| x-11-12-10-13-x | 10th fret | Ab, 1st inversion | C | all fretted |
| 13-x-12-13-13-13 | 12th fret | F, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 15 drop 2, 10 drop 3 and 2 open string voicings, each on its own page.
Tensions. A shell of Fm6, root, third and seventh, leaves a string free, and the tones that belong over it are the 9 (G) and the 11 (Bb).
How to use Fm6
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Fm6 is Gm7♭5 to C7♭9: the ii and the V of F minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Fm6 belongs to C minor (the iv, the subdominant) and Eb major (the ii, the supertonic).
What to play over Fm6
Every note of Fm6 is in F dorian, F melodic minor and F half-whole diminished.
Chords near Fm6
Change one note of Fm6 and you have Fm (drop the sixth), Fdim7 (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Fm69 (add the ninth), Fm7 (the sixth becomes a flat seventh), FmMaj7 (the sixth becomes a major seventh) or Fmadd9 (the sixth becomes a ninth).
Fm6 is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Fm6’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.