The Am6 chord
The Am6 chord is the cocktail-piano minor. Its notes (A - C - E - F#) form a minor sixth, which is why it shows up across the Great American Songbook and torch songs. Songwriters pick the Am6 when they want a touch of sweetness in a sad context, and on guitar it sits naturally where most players already park their hand. Light My Fire by The Doors leans on Am6 throughout the verse. The voicings, theory, progressions and song references that follow are organised so you can skim once or settle in for the full picture.
Hear the Am6 in the chord builder →Voicings for Am6
Common ways to grip the Am6 on guitar and piano. Guitar diagrams read low E to high E left-to-right; an × means muted, an open circle above the nut means an open string. Filled dots are fretted notes.
Guitar , full chord shapes
CAGED-derived voicings for Am6 across the neck. Pick the shape closest to where your hand already sits.
Guitar , triad shapes
Three-note triad shapes on each string set, shown moving up the neck. Light textures for arpeggios, pop layering and chord-melody work.
Piano voicings
Root position and inversions. The bass note matters: each inversion changes how the chord sits under a melody.
The theory behind Am6
Progressions that use Am6
Short progressions that put the Am6 to work. Each one is shown in a different key so you can pick the one that suits your singer.
This chord appears as a borrowed or passing chord in many minor-key progressions.
→ Build this in the chord builderSongs that feature Am6
Real records where this chord does structural work. No lyrics quoted, just the title and artist so you can pull up a copy and hear it in context.
- Light My Fire by The Doors. Am6 colour within the song's verse.
- Black Magic Woman by Santana. Am6 inside the song's verse harmony.
- My Favorite Things by Standard. Am6 colour in the verse.
Related chords
Chords a step away from the Am6 in the songwriting circle, the natural neighbours when you want a substitution.
Keys where Am6 lives
The keys where this chord turns up diatonically. Open any key page for the full set of progressions that lean on it.
Related references
Other ways to put the Am6 to work across the reference library.
More songwriting tools
Got the chord but still wrestling with the lyric? Find the right rhyme in RhymeForge, or break a writer's block with the unexpected word-pair generator in CollisionLab. Need to map a full progression? The chord builder on the home page is where the Am6 fits into context. All free, no signup.
About the chord builder
The Undercover Zest chord progression builder is a free interactive tool that maps every diatonic and borrowed chord in every key. Click a Roman numeral to hear it, drag chords into a progression, then audition voicings, inversions and tensions until the song clicks.
This page is a static reference for the Am6. For interactive playback, voice-leading hints and substitution suggestions, open the chord builder above.