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Major and Minor 6th Chords

   Guitarweek goes against alot of what is taught in Schools and books and 6th chords are one more thing that we disagree on. Most chords and scales can be seen by paying attention to the notes that are played - a Major 6th is exactly the same as a Major 13th.

   Numerous books and sites declare that a Major or Minor Sixth chord consist of (1st - 3rd - 5th - 6th) the first three are the basic chord, and the 6th is the extension. Hearing 1st 3rd and 5th can be confusing so lets try to show how that is figured.

   Each key is made up of 7 Tones that make up 7 basic chords - lets study the formula in the Key of C. The Key of C uses the Notes CDEFGAB - you can start from ANYWHERE for the 1st and then just follow them like you are counting - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th - 

  Well, there are only 7 notes so how do you get up up to the 14th? - you simply write all the notes twice - CDEFGAB CDEFGAB - for the basic 1-3-5, you go every other note from where you start     

   You can shift the notes around for the other six chords in this key - here we will show you what this looks like starting from each of the 7 tones in the Key of C.

   The other part is determining if the chord is Major, Minor or Diminished, This works off of a formula too.  Below we show the chord names in the Key of C.

  You can also put in the notes of the other keys and it works the same way - You must however start off with the Key note (C for C - G for G - A for A...) -  Below we show you all 12 keys. (The first column going down is the Key - Then go across for the chords in that key)

    Now that we understand how the chords are determined for the different keys, lets talk about this Major and Minor 6th - In reality they do not exist. 

 An extended chord is the basic 1-3-5 plus the (extended) note - Guitarweek only goes as far as the 11th so with the table below you would use the 1-3-5-11 for the Major 11th, the 9th chord would be 1-3-5-9 and so on. 

     According to other people you would have the 1-3-5-6 (Major 6th) You should notice that the column with the 6th and 13th are both an "A" - We call this chord C Major 13th for practical purposes.        

  Below is the A Minor 7th that uses the same notes as the above C Major 6th 

   We will let you make up your own mind on the 6th chords, the best way to determine a chord is looking at the notes and arranging them in Alphabetical order and look for the Patterns of FACE or EGBDF - every other note. this can be confusing for Keys other than C due to the sharps and flats so analyze the ones in the Key of C.