The Sound Of LOVE: Choose The Right Min6 Chord And Every Progression Sounds ROMANTIC
You already know the beginner move: borrow a minor chord where a major one usually sits, and the progression instantly sounds a little sadder.
It's a good trick.
It's also not the one that gives you that specific, aching, romantic sound.
That sound comes from a particular version of the borrowed chord, an m6. It shows up so rarely that most guitarists who play it by accident have no idea what to call it, let alone how to use it on purpose.
In the video, I walk through this chord in several different inversions, played over a simple C major progression, so you can hear exactly why it works and where else you can drop it in. It's one chord, but it's a chord that does one very specific emotional job better than almost anything else in the harmonic vocabulary.
If you want more chords like this, ones that actually do something to the listener instead of just filling space, that's the whole premise behind Complete Chord Mastery. Every session comes with a spotlight on one chord or substitution, worked out on the fretboard, not just on paper.
Video Transcription
Hello Internet, so nice to see you. Today we're gonna work on a chord that is kind of the secret of the romantic sound and this chord it's actually pretty simple. In fact, you know, you probably already know, the simplest version of it okay, the simplest version on it it's... well let's work for a moment in C major and I'm gonna play a super simple chord progression.
I'm gonna play D, F, G, C really nothing complicated here. Actually, let me... there. Super simple, really nothing strange, okay. What I am playing here on the whiteboard is gonna be this. It's gonna... we're gonna have... super simple.
I'm playing 3, 5, 5, 3. For the F I'm playing 3, 5, 6, 5 and for the G I'm playing 5, 4, 3, 3. So really nothing really complicated. C, F, G and then I'm coming back to the C. That's what I'm playing. Super simple.
Now, the simplest version that you know already is that after the F or rather than the F, you substitute an F minor. Okay. And the F minor can go to the G or the F minor can go directly to the C. Okay. Or a number of other combinations are possible, honestly.
That is a bit more esoteric. Anyway, the point is simply to make this F minor okay, which is just changing that note. That's fantastic, that's beautiful, it works fantastically. There's no criticism of that. That's... and it's not classic, okay, because classical music does something slightly different. But it is very, very common and it works fantastically good.
But what we're gonna do right now is do something slightly different. Let's take that F minor and let's add a sixth. Why? You'll see in a moment. Because if I have... if I take the F minor chord, which is F, A flat, C, and then I add a sixth, which is a D, this chord is also the same, as you can see, as a D minor seventh flat five. Okay, same notes. D, F, A flat, C. Okay.
This chord is a half diminished chord or again a minor seventh flat five. It's very, very, very versatile. And this chord can be applied. Notice that we are in C major. This chord comes from C minor. So it's borrowed from the C minor key.
And you can play this chord in any inversion. And it will always sound good if you play it before a G or before a C or even just after. So this kind of this chord is kind of a substitute subdominant chord. It works in place where every other subdominant chord would work.
Whenever you have an F or a D minor, you could play this one instead. It's borrowed from the minor scale and it just sounds gorgeous. Okay.
Now notice, for instance, that this chord contains a C note. So if I'm playing a C major chord, I can keep the bass, just the bass, and then play the rest of the chord. What am I playing here? It's actually super simple. So I'm going to delete this chord. You know what the chord is. And I'm going to just write what I'm playing right now. Super simple.
What I'm playing is I'm playing a C major chord. Three, two, zero, one. Literally a C major chord with open strings. Then I'm playing my magic chord here. Three, three, one, three. Again, you could call this, I like to call it an F minor six with a bass of C. You can call it a D minor seven, flat five with a bass of C. It's the same thing. Okay.
And then I'm going three, five, five, five. So this is still a C, but in a different position. You can go back and forth between those two. And then back here.
But you can also go here, then here, and here. But you can also go here, then here, and then down here. And the bass stays the same, because again, this F minor six contains a C.
But again, that's not the only thing you can do. You can always play this chord in different position, in different situations, etc, etc. For instance, another thing you can do. I mean, we can take all the inversions of it. The basic inversion, again, if it's an F minor six, it's this. Okay, so this inversion will be...
There we go. This inversion is this, it's three, five, three, six, F minor six. And again, this would work fantastically if I put it between the C and the G as they were, as we had them before. So the C was C, three, five, five, three, and the G was five, four, three, three. And if again, if I just play these, whoop, if I just play these, I'll have...
So that's how it will work. But again, I can also go between these and directly back on the C. You've heard this chord. Again, one of the best... No, I'm not saying it's a best-kept secret. It is a fairly common chord, but it's a very romantic sound, you know? It's a very... Notice again, this chord also contains a D, so I can play it in this D minor seventh flat five form.
Like, literally as it is. So that would be a five, five, six, four, D minor seven flat five. It's again the same chord, just in a different situation. It sounds similar, but not exactly the same. And this one likes to move to G or G7. Okay.
Again, good to have this inversion here. But again, you can always find a different inversion. You can always find a different thing. So one of my favorite one is the F minor sixth with a bass of A flat. Okay. Again, there are four notes. Any one of them can be the bass.
This one I like to play on the top four strings, just after a C major. I'm going to play C major as 10, 9, 8, 8, C. And then this chord here is going to be played here. Just beautiful. Six, seven, six, eight. Notice that the top note is the same.
Since the top note is a C, I can follow it with a Gsus4, followed by a G, and back to C. It's just a beautiful sound to have. Okay.
So the lesson of today is simply, A, consider the F minor sixth chord in a C major scale. Or in general, in any major scale, take the fourth chord, make it minor, like everybody else tells you, but also add the sixth. Okay, that's important. And then try all the inversion of that chord. You get so many good, interesting chord progressions.
And that... just so many. Just so many, actually. I couldn't play it this way. The bass of F.
However you play, these chords sound good. And especially when you keep the top note connected to the chord just before and after. Or the bottom note, like we were doing down here at the beginning of the video. That's a great sound to have. It's one sound, it does one thing, it's literally a one-trick pony, but it does that trick really well.
If you want a romantic sound, if you want this kind of emotional grip, that's the chord for you. Okay. And sure, it's not a general thing, but if you know enough vocabulary like that, you can go anywhere. And if you want to know way, way more vocabulary like that, I would recommend you guys have a look at my course, Complete Chord Mastery, okay, where on every session of this course, you're also going to get a spotlight session.
And the spotlight session concentrates on a specific chord, a specific substitution, or a specific chord progression, giving you different options, substitutions, availability of sounds, et cetera, et cetera. So you build up a lot of harmonic vocabulary by studying that.
And again, if you want to write music and you want those sounds to be in your music, that's the ticket, okay? So have a look at this course. And otherwise, just take what we did today, try it in your own music. It's one chord, but it's one chord you didn't know before.
This is Tommaso Zillio. musictheoryforguitar.com. And until next time, enjoy.