The minor chord family

Minor 6th Chords

Anyone who has ever been to a wedding ceremony has heard a minor 6th chord as the very first chord of one of the world's most recongizable ipeces of music.


If you just play the plain A minor triad instead of the A minor 6th, it sounds lacking in character.

The most common use of the minor 6th is: iv min 6 -- V7 -- i progression in a minor key.

For eg. Wedding March is one example of this.

Dm(i) Gm6 (iv6) A7 (V7) Dm (i)


Sometimes, the tonic chord in a minor key is played as a minor 6th.
This is done in Latin dance tunes and in some big band tunes such as Caravan.
In general i ti snot played too often cuz of its somewhat dissonant sound. It i snot nearly as pleasant sounding as its counterpart, the major 6th chord, cuz in the minor 6th chord, the interval between teh 3rd and 6th of the chord is the highly unresolved tritone (3 whole tones).