This lesson with FREE PDF and YouTube Short provides an exercise to practice minor 6 chords and arpeggios in a fun way.
Minor 6 chords are a unique and versatile type of minor chord that add a subtle, sophisticated flavor to your playing.
Built from a standard minor triad with the addition of the 6th degree of the scale, they create a sound that is both dark and smooth, yet slightly brighter than a traditional minor or minor 7 chord.
On the guitar, Minor 6 chords and their corresponding arpeggios are widely used in jazz, bossa nova, fusion, and contemporary music.
Learning how to play them, move them across the neck, and incorporate them into improvisation will expand your harmonic vocabulary and give your playing a more modern, expressive sound.
A minor 6 chord is a type of minor chord that includes the 6th degree of the scale.
Its formula is 1 – ♭3 – 5 – 6. This gives the chord a darker minor feel but adds a touch of brightness and sophistication compared to a regular minor or minor 7 chord.
Example:
A minor 6 (Am6): A – C – E – F♯
Sound characteristics:
Dark and smooth like a minor chord, but with a subtle modern, jazzy flavor.
Often used in jazz, fusion, bossa nova, and contemporary guitar music
Chapter 2: Building Minor 6 Chords
Minor 6 chords are built by taking a standard minor triad (1 – ♭3 – 5) and adding the 6th degree.
Example in A minor:
Root = A
Minor third = C
Perfect fifth = E
Major sixth = F♯
Chord
Formula
Notes (A root)
Am
1 – ♭3 – 5
A – C – E
Am7
1 – ♭3 – 5 – ♭7
A – C – E – G
Am6
1 – ♭3 – 5 – 6
A – C – E – F♯
Minor 6 Chord Shapes on Guitar
Minor 6 chords can be played in multiple positions on the neck.
It’s important to learn both 6th-string root and 5th-string root shapes to navigate the fretboard efficiently.
Here are some basic shapes :
Minor 6 Arpeggios - 2 Note Per String Shapes
An arpeggio is a chord played one note at a time. Minor 6 arpeggios allow guitarists to outline chord tones when soloing or improvising.
This Printable PDF eBook available for free download contains 6 easy jazz guitar licks with tabs/notation, youtube video link and analysis about the tritone substitution.
This eBook PDF with audio files contains 25 dominant diminished jazz guitar patterns using the half-whole diminished scale and diminished 7th arpeggios.
You will find here an eBook available in PDF containing 25 soul jazz and hard bop guitar licks in the style of Grant Green, Melvin Sparks, George Benson.
This printable method is available as a PDF file containing 40 easy dominant jazz-blues guitar lines with tabs, standard notation, analysis, audio files and scale charts.
This PDF eBook method contains 25 altered jazz guitar licks with tabs, patterns, scale charts and audio files to master, apply and develop the altered scale.
This jazz guitar method is an eBook available as a PDF with standard notation, guitar tabs, diagrams, analysis, audio files and backing tracks. You will find in this booklet 25 easy jazz guitar lines with theory using common and rare pentatonic scales.
This printable eBook method in PDF format provides 49 jazz solo transcriptions of the greatest jazz musicians. Tab, standard notation, audio files & analysis.
In this package you'll get a printable PDF Method with tabs, notation, analysis, scale shapes and audio files for practicing 30 smooth jazz guitar licks.
This PDF eBook provides over 550 guitar chord shapes. This is the perfect reference guide to understand how chords are built and how to play them on the guitar neck.
This bundle contains 4 PDF methods for a total of 170 exercises with tabs, staves, analysis & audio files for practicing scales, arpeggios licks & chords over the 2-5-1 progression.
Within this package, you'll discover a set of ten chord melody exercises for beginners. Printable PDFaudio files, a backing track, and a link to a YouTube video.
This package provides a printable PDF with exercises and audio files to learn how to harmonize the major scale with 3 note chords and their extensions.
In this mini jazz guitar lesson you will learn how to play easy and cool jazz lines over basic chord changes found in jazz. Pdf, tab and video included.
This downloadable package provides a PDF with Tab/score, a guitar pro file and a short video for practicing guitar arpeggios on a jazz blues progression in Bb.
This package for guitarists contains a PDF with tab, video, backing track and guitar pro file for practicing arpeggios over a basic jazz blues progression.
With this mini guitar lesson you will learn how to superimpose arpeggios over a diatonic chord progression. Video, pdf, jamtrack and guitar pro file included.
This mini guitar lesson provides a printable PDF with tab/notation, video, backing track and guitar pro file for practicing open triads over Fly Me To The Moon.
This guitar lesson is a package inlcuding a PDF transcription with analysis, a short video, a backing track and a guitar pro file to learn to play jazz solo lines over Blue Bossa.
This mini lesson provides a video, a guitar pro file and PDF transcription of a jazz blues study in G implying melodic lines, chord extensions and substitutions