Sixth, Sixth Chord, and Added Sixth
In music, the sixth factor of a chord is the note or pitch six scale degrees above the root or tonal center (see sixth chord). When the sixth is the bass note, or lowest note, of the expressed chord, the chord is in third inversion Play. However, this is equivalent to a seventh chord.
Conventionally, the sixth is third in importance to the root, fifth, and third, being an added tone. It is generally not allowed as the root since that inversion resembles a seventh chord on the sixth rather than an added tone on the original note. In jazz chords and theory, the sixth is required due to its being an added tone.
The quality of the sixth may be determined by the scale or may be indicated. For example, in a major scale a diatonic sixth added to the tonic chord will be major (C-E-G-A) while in minor it will be minor (C-E♭-G-A♭).
The sixth is octave equivalent to the thirteenth. If one could cut out the notes in between the fifth and the thirteenth and then drop the thirteenth down an octave to a sixth, one would have an added sixth chord (CEGB♭D'F'A' – B♭D'F' = CEGA).
Read more about this topic: Sixth Chord
Famous quotes containing the words sixth and/or added:
“The elephant, not only the largest but the most intelligent of animals, provides us with an excellent example. It is faithful and tenderly loving to the female of its choice, mating only every third year and then for no more than five days, and so secretly as never to be seen, until, on the sixth day, it appears and goes at once to wash its whole body in the river, unwilling to return to the herd until thus purified. Such good and modest habits are an example to husband and wife.”
—St. Francis De Sales (1567–1622)
“I believe it is the conviction of the purest men, that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty. His want of skill in other directions, has added to his fitness for his own work.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)