Hello

A Dm6 chord consists of the notes D F A B. Is that right?

Can it also consist of the notes D F A Bb?

I was working out the 6th chords from C Major, you see;
C maj6 - C E G A
Dm6 - D F A B
etc

But then when playing in D minor;
Dm6 - D F A Bb.
etc to
C maj6 - C E G A.

So, do 6th chords change relative to the key?

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My Jukebocks

Quote Carlospresents...:

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A Dm6 chord consists of the notes D F A B. Is that right?

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Yes...

Quote Carlospresents...:

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Can it also consist of the notes D F A Bb?

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That would be Dm6#5

Quote Carlospresents...:

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But then when playing in D minor;

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The scale of Dm = scale of F, and has the same chords?

-n.

Dm6#5? Surely that would be
D F A A# B
with A# being the #5 and B being the 6th?

Yes, Dminor=Fmajor which have the same chords but I'm not realy sure why you mentioned that...

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My Jukebocks

Sorry, I'm a guitarist, we don't use all the notes ; (

http://jguitar.com/chord?chord=Minor+6th+Sharp+5th%7bm6%235%3a1%2cb3%2c%23 5%2c6%7d&root=D&page=2&labels=letter

But logically what you says sounds correct...

My thinking with the scales is that I'm not sure I'd expect Dm6 to be present in the Dm scale?

But I'm not knowledgable on the subject, only opionionated.

-n.

Quote thedogboy:

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Sorry, I'm a guitarist, we don't use all the notes ; (

http://jguitar.com/chord?chord=Minor+6th+Sharp+5th%7bm6%235%3a1%2cb3%2c%23 5%2c6%7d&root=D&page=2&labels=letter

But logically what you says sounds correct...

My thinking with the scales is that I'm not sure I'd expect Dm6 to be present in the Dm scale?

But I'm not knowledgable on the subject, only opionionated.

-n.

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A 6th chord is an extended chord. It wouldn't be present from harmonising in triads, or sevenths, the conventional ways, but that's the point of an extended chord, to added a different flavour to a sound.

Quote Carlospresents...:

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Hello

A Dm6 chord consists of the notes D F A B. Is that right?

Can it also consist of the notes D F A Bb?

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That (DFAB) is right yes - it's a minor triad plus the sixth -the major sixth.

Adding the minor sixth is possible too, but discordant because the A and Bb are only a semitone apart - but if you can lose the fifth or find a better inversion, it's not unusable. I think you notate it explicitly as Dm6/min6 or similar.

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TAKEN.BALL.GONE.HOME

isn't D F A Bb B = D minor 6 flat 13 ...?

Quote Bill C:

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isn't D F A Bb B = D minor 6 flat 13 ...?

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I wasn't suggesting adding both a minor and a major sixth above. I was referring to the OP asking about the minor sixth (interval) instead of the major sixth.

(But when I see a 13, I am expecting a seventh in there somewhere too...!)

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TAKEN.BALL.GONE.HOME

A minor 6 chord always has the notes (from the root) 1-b3-5-6: adding Bb to a Dm triad makes Dmb6, which as an earlier poster pointed out is a lot harder to voice nicely. You need to either lose the 5, or make sure the 6 is a long way above it (which really makes a Dm add b13 chord).

Do 6 chords change relative to the key? You could look at it like that, but in practice, not really. The only minor 6 chord you can make diatonically in a major key is the one built on the second degree: thus Dm6 lives in the key of C major, not F major.

A common use for Dm6 is as a substitute for Bm7b5: in fact it contains the same notes. Dm6 is the 1st inversion of Bm7b5 (it's built from the 3rd instead of the root). In fact, if you take a look at the different 6 chords you can make in a major key, they're all inversions of 7th chords (C6=Am7, Dm6=Bm7b5, Emb6=Cmaj7, F6=Dm7, G6=Em7, Amb6=Fmaj7, Bmb6b5 (ugh)=G7).

Minor keys are another matter, but remember the chords in D minor are not built from the same notes that are found in F major (for example). If you do make a minor chord sequence from the diatonic notes of the relative major (i.e. using the notes of C major to build an A minor sequence, or using F major to do D minor), you're not actually in the key of A minor or whatever: you'd be in the A or D Aeolian mode. Minor keys (usually) use the notes of the Harmonic Minor scale to build chords, but because minor harmonies are very unstable there's a lot of leeway for chromaticism and non-diatonic notes: in fact, although there's a theoretical 'right answer', I'd say that in practice it's impossible to say exactly what harmonies are diatonic to a minor key.

Sorry that got so technical. Once you start me off...

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Free yo' mind and yo' ass will follow…

More!

That's my favourite answer so far!

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My Jukebocks

You could have a D major triad with a sixth, a d minor triad with the same sixth (A) and you could have d minor with a flattened sixth (A flat), which is what this is. Exotic!


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www.mikeandersonmusic.co.uk

Quote Polyglot:

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If you do make a minor chord sequence from the diatonic notes of the relative major (i.e. using the notes of C major to build an A minor sequence, or using F major to do D minor), you're not actually in the key of A minor or whatever: you'd be in the A or D Aeolian mode. Minor keys (usually) use the notes of the Harmonic Minor scale to build chords, but because minor harmonies are very unstable there's a lot of leeway for chromaticism and non-diatonic notes: in fact, although there's a theoretical 'right answer', I'd say that in practice it's impossible to say exactly what harmonies are diatonic to a minor key.

Sorry that got so technical. Once you start me off...

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This leads nicely to a question I've always wanted to ask..but never got round to.

When did the Harmonic Minor scale fall out of favour in Western music and why?

I've studied Bach at school (G.C.S.E and A Level) and obviously Harmonic Minor was commonplace in the Baroque period but you don't hear so much of it in very late Classical or Romantic music.

I read somewhere that melodies derived from the Harmonic Minor were difficult to sing and the Melodic minor scales were devised for that reason.

I find this kind of stuff fascinating.

Pabs

Quote Rhys Llewellyn:

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A 6th chord is an extended chord. It wouldn't be present from harmonising in triads, or sevenths, the conventional ways, but that's the point of an extended chord, to added a different flavour to a sound.

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Small point of pedantry (since pedantry is, after all, the entire raison d'etre of this board and the reason we all love it so much) - Dm6 is actually an Added Chord, meaning that the sixth is just superimposed upon the triad "because it sounds good". "Extended chord" relates to chords that are built up by thirds, but which have the more distant additions - 9ths, 11ths, 13ths.

Carlos - You need to remember that there are two things at play, the technical derivation of all the various chords and then the process by which people choose which of those chords to use, according to what sounds stylistic and what works.

The chord symbol "Dm6" always mean a D minor triad with a B natural added - ie, any "m6" chord will have a MAJOR 6th added above the root.

It's perfectly possible to add a minor 6th above the root instead, and indeed that's what you'll get if you form chords in the same way on various different scale degrees, as you've found. I'm not sure what the chord symbol would be for such a chord, since no-one has every really bothered to give it one.

There's a reason for this, which goes beyond the idea that it just "doesn't sound good" having the semitone between the fifthe and sixth (after all plenty of voicings of various other chords have semitones in them, it's all a matter of context). The real issue is that Dm with a Bb added is really just Bb Maj7 in first inversion. When you play it, that's exactly what it sounds like - your ear immediately hears Bb as the root of the chord, maybe just slightly weakened by there being a D in the bass.

So if you really want it played with D in the bass, you'd probably write it "Bb Maj7 (D Bass)", or "Bb Maj7/D".

"OK, so why can't Dm with a B natural added just equally be seen as a B half diminished seventh in first inversion?" I hear the clamorous tones of a million outraged musicologists cry...

It can, of course, but there's a big difference. With the Bb, the seventh chord formed is a major seventh, which has a major triad as its basis. This makes the root (Bb) extremely strong and clear, and the inescapable anchor of the chord. With the B natural, the basis of the inverted seventh chord is a diminished triad, which has no stability or sense of tonicity of its own. So the B natural exerts much less power over the chord. If you then put it in a firmly D Minory context, say as the tonic chord of a piece in D Dorian, the power of the D in the bass will easily be enough to exert far mor strength than the B natural and emphasise the D minor triad as the essence of the chord, to which the B is just an added "colour".

This makes it worth giving it its own separate identity and chord symbol.

Quote Wurlitzer:

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This makes it worth giving it its own separate identity and chord symbol.

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Dm6 Aeolian - isn't that sometimes used to indicate the minor 6th?

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TAKEN.BALL.GONE.HOME

Never seen it myself (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist).

But now that I think about it I have see Dm-6, to mean minor triad + minor 6th. It's just one doesn't see it nearly so often, so I'd forgotten about it.

All of these 6ths are just add a mildly dissonant note to what are functionally triads - so they are a flavour rather than a functional extension (unless you consider that for instance a dm6 is just a 2nd inversion Bm7) If you're interested in functional 6th look up the augmented 6th in its various flavours (French, Italian, and German) - you don't hear that in many pop songs.

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Daniel Davis
Edinburgh Recording Studio Windmill Sound

Quote Daniel Davis:

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(unless you consider that for instance a dm6 is just a 2nd inversion Bm7)

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Erm, shurely shome mishtake - u mean 1st inv. of Bm7b5 instead of 2nd inv. of Bm7?

it's the damn guitarists i tell you

traditionaly a 6th chord meant an inversion (first)

the "added sixth" should rightly be seen as the 13th of the chord and if by choice you put it inside the structure it's a closed voicing... IMO thinking of it as a sixth belies the nature of the chord on a functional level... perhaps too subtly for some but there it is...

Not sure what u mean mr dementedchord.

Sounds like you're thinking of 6 as in figured bass which is indeed shorthand for 1st inversion (6 3 1 chord structure going downwards).

I'd have thought add6 means just a sixth added to a major or minor triad, whilst 13 implies 11, 9 and 7 are also included in the chord. Different beasts altogether.

Min add 6 is such a distinctive spicy chord that it tends (in my rip off world of media music) to only get used for soundalikes of James Bond theme, 'that' Guinness ad tune, Summertime and perhaps cheesy swing style Big Band sax quartets moving between Maj add6 and dim7 chords.

Have to admit though, in the real world, something like a dom 9th chord which actually has no 3rd eg. C,Bb,D,G (going upwards) would often be referred to as a 9th chord in the context of say, a James Brownesque funk guitar riff. Of course in theory world however, it snot though....

Quote jrbcm:

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I'd have thought add6 means just a sixth added to a major or minor triad, whilst 13 implies 11, 9 and 7 are also included in the chord. Different beasts altogether.

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perhaps there's the rub... for me atleast i dont feel the need to include the 9th or 11th just because i'm using a 13th...

as to the inversion bit i suppose that i (as usual in my haste) didnt clarify... yes i was speaking in reference to the post just above me without drawing a direct quote... mia culpa..

Just to add :
In jazz Dm6 is used a lot as substitution for DmMaj7 (minor D scale with a major seventh). I keep forgetting if that's harmonic or melodic minor, but it's a minor that functions as the tonic, so it doesn't resolve to anything. By voicing a Dm6 instead of a DmMaj7 the chord sounds like it has "less attitude", more old school (think 1920's vs 1940's), but the tonic function remains the same. I allways voice that with the 9th instead of the root, so the voicing I use the most is : F A B E
As for a Dmb6, I have never seen that chord. It would indeed be written as a Bbmaj7/D, IMHO.

Another interesting way to voice Dm6 is in quartal voicings, with the root on top (on piano). you then get B E A D.


Just my two pence added to the confusion

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"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."
Miles Davis

Quote jrbcm:

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Quote Daniel Davis:

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(unless you consider that for instance a dm6 is just a 2nd inversion Bm7)

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Erm, shurely shome mishtake - u mean 1st inv. of Bm7b5 instead of 2nd inv. of Bm7?

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Ah, well spotted that man - of course I should have gone with the other example from the original post C6 which does have identical notes to Am7.

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Daniel Davis
Edinburgh Recording Studio Windmill Sound