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I am moving on to Sixths because they are the complement of Thirds. As a result, harmonized sixths are almost as prevalent as harmonized thirds.
When I say that a sixth complements a third, what I mean is that a third and a sixth together make up an octave. To be more specific, a major third with a minor sixth on top of it make an octave (C to E, and then E to C). And a minor third and a major sixth make up an octave (D to F, and then F to D).
Like thirds, sixths come in two basic forms: major and minor. And like thirds, they are considered imperfect consonances.
Major Sixth
The major sixth spans 9 frets on the fretboard, or nine semitones. It is the 27th harmonic in the harmonic series, and thus the harmonic is basically unplayable on the guitar. It has a frequency ratio, in just intonation, of 5:3. The equal temperament major sixth is only six cents flat of a just major sixth, which makes it relatively close to a pure tuning.
My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean and My Way begin with ascending major sixths. Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen starts with a descending major sixth.
There are seven open major sixths on the guitar, and 9 closed forms. But there are only four positions that you need to learn for these, and then these positions repeat on different string sets. See the attached tab on major sixths.
The major sixth on two adjacent strings is mostly used to play the Rock n Roll, Chuck Berry style riff where the pinky reaches out to play four frets ahead on a barre chord.
Another great example of rolling from the fifth to the sixth on a rhythm part is in the main sections of California Girls. This video is also conclusive proof that we have had crappy lip sync on TV for a long, long time:
Minor Sixths
A minor sixth spans 8 frets on the guitar, or eight half steps. It’s the 13th harmonic (or sometimes the 25th, they are both close to our minor sixth), and again unplayable on the guitar as a harmonic. The just frequency ratio is 8:5, and that ratio is just a bit sharp (14 cents) of the equal tempered minor sixth.
She’s A Woman by the Beatles, and the Theme from Black Orpheus start with ascending minor sixths. The Theme from Love Story starts on a descending minor sixth.
The minor sixth does not appear prominently in rock or blues harmony, not like the major sixth.
I’ve included a tab for minor sixths as well. There are five open minor sixths, and nine closed ones, but again they appear in only four basic shapes.
Harmonized Sixths
As with thirds, it is possible, and quite common to play lead lines that consist of harmonized sixths. They have a more “open” sound than harmonized thirds. You can play diatonic sixths (ones that occur within the scale of the key), and they will almost always sound pretty good.
In EP137 Brian uses harmonized 6ths in measures 17 and 18.
And in EP136 there is an extended harmonized sixth passage from Bar 17 to the end.
I’ve included a Tab for harmonized sixth scales, this time in the key of E major. Instead of always starting on E, this time I started on the open interval that occurs within the E scale. So you will be playing modes, without knowing it. A curiosity here is that the fretting pattern is the same for the scale in the first two bars, and the scale in bars three and four, even though they start on different notes, and again for the next two iterations of the scale. This means that you really only have to learn two patterns to know all of your harmonized sixth scales: one for the G and E string, and the other for the E and D string.
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