The Dramatic yet Beautiful Sound

of The Major and Minor 6th

Hey guys, welcome to another awesome fingerstyle guitar lesson.

Today I am going to show you the dramatic yet beautiful sound of the major and minor 6th played on acoustic (or classical guitar).

I personally love the sound of the major and minor 6th for many different reasons:

They are easy to play and visualize on the neck.
The sound is beautiful, romantic, dramatic and powerful.
It’s easy to double the melody with the major and minor 6th.

This is a guitar lesson for any guitar player who want to learn more about chords, melody and the beautiful major and minor 6th.

To make it easy for you, I decided to write the exercise in E minor key which is indeed a familiar key for the majority of you.

About the Exercise

Key: E minor

Technique: Fingerstyle arpeggio and single note plucking.

Concept: Major and minor 6th played in E minor key.

Plucking Pattern: In this lesson the plucking pattern is quite unusual. We will be playing the strings with the P – i – m – a pattern but without plucking the 3rd string (G string). That will make the picking pattern “Weird” at first.

Sections: In this exercise there are two different sections. The first in which we are going to play slash chords with 6th and the second section with a simple melody over a different chord progression.

Level: For beginners and intermediate guitar players.

How to practice: The chords can be challenging at first. Learn one position at a time before moving on to the next chord.

Let’s get started.

Tab available on Patreon!

Get the Tab here!

The Video

The Chord Progression

One of the things I love the most about this exercise is the chord progression full of slash chords.

The slash chord is a chord with played with a different bass note.

When you learn the first section, the chord progression goes as follows: Em – Am/E – B7/E.

For a chord such as Am/E you want to play the A minor chord (doesn’t matter which shape as long as you play the A – C – E notes that build this chord) with the bass note of E.

Check the diagram below to visualize the Am/E chord.

This chord is played on the 4th string fret ten (C, minor 3rd of A), 2nd string fret ten (A, root note) and 1st string open (E, perfect 5th of A). However the bass note is the 6th open string E, which makes this chord an Am/E.

The Major and Minor 6th

Another awesome thing you will learn in this lesson is the use of the major and minor 6th interval.

The interval is the distance between two notes. If I play the note C and A, and I count the distance between them I will have a 6th.

In this fingerstyle guitar lesson we are going to play a melody entirely played on major and minor 6th.

Let me show you the E minor scale harmonized in 6th so that you can familiarize yourself with the positions and different shapes. Highlighted in red the major and minor 6th we are going to use in this lesson.

And also the different set of strings:

Major vs Minor Shape

Make sure you learn the difference between the major and minor shape so that you can easily recognize if the chord is using the major or minor 6th.

There difference is between one fret only.

Important! The shapes will change on a different set of string. Notice how the minor shape played on the 4th and 2nd string is different than the minor shape played on 3rd and 1st.