B Major 6th Chord: Notes, Voicings, and How to Play It

Lay one finger flat across the top four strings at the fourth fret. What sounds is F♯, B, D♯ and G♯, a complete B6 with nothing doubled and nothing left out. B major, the plain triad on the same root, cannot be had that cheaply anywhere on the neck: it has no open form and its usual grip is one of the more awkward barres in common use. Adding a note somehow buys the chord back.

Those same four notes, read from the other end, spell G♯m7. Which chord you are playing is settled by the bass and by what follows, not by the notes.

Try It: B6 in the Chord Finder

The Notes of B6

Four notes inside a single major sixth, so the chord is compact. The G♯ sits a whole step above the fifth and a whole step below the octave, which is what stops it sounding unfinished.

How B6 Is Built

Start with B major, B D♯ F♯, and add G♯ on top. Nothing is removed or altered, so the chord keeps its major identity and gains a colour note.

The letters fix both accidentals. A third skips one letter, so B, C, D lands on some form of D, and B to D natural is only three semitones, which makes it D♯ and never E♭. A sixth counts six letters, B, C, D, E, F, G, so the added note has to be a form of G. Write the chord B, E♭, G♭, A♭ and every interval in it reads wrongly, even though the keys under your fingers are identical.

The absent note defines the chord. B13 would need A natural, the flattened seventh, under the G♯, because a thirteenth is a dominant chord built from a stack of odd numbered notes. There is no seventh here at all, so the G♯ extends nothing. It is a chord tone, the fourth member of a four note chord, and the symbol says 6 rather than 13 to say so.

B6 on the Piano

One white key and three black. B is the only note here at the front of the keyboard; D♯, F♯ and G♯ are all up on the black keys, D♯ at the right hand end of the group of two, F♯ and G♯ the first pair in the group of three.

That layout is friendlier than it sounds. Chopin started pupils on B major rather than C because a hand set on black keys lets the long fingers rest at their natural length with the thumb on the white note in front. B6 is that principle in one grip: thumb on B, 2 on D♯, 4 on F♯, 5 on G♯. Skipping the third finger looks fussy written down, but F♯ and G♯ are immediate neighbours, and 3 and 5 would cram two long fingers into one black key width.

Close position has one weak spot. F♯ and G♯ are adjacent black keys, so the top of the chord is a whole step and it thickens below middle C. Split the hands instead: B and F♯ in the left, D♯ and G♯ in the right, spreading that whole step across more than an octave.

B6 on the Guitar

The working shape is the A form barred at the second fret, x24444: index across fret 2 for the root B on the fifth string, ring finger flat across the other four strings at fret 4. It sounds B, F♯, B, D♯, G♯.

Compare that with B major at the same fret, x24442. There the ring finger must lie flat across three strings and still arch at the tip so the first string can sound at fret 2 underneath, the job most responsible for B major’s reputation. In B6 the first string joins the others at fret 4, so the finger simply lies down. Two clean barres, no arching, no little finger. The index barre is still work this close to the nut, but the shape above it is as plain as a barre chord gets.

Strip the root and it gets simpler again. xx4444 is one finger across four strings and still contains every note, with F♯ in the bass. When somebody else has the B, that is the better voicing anyway.

Higher up, the E form at the seventh fret is 799897, and it is not friendly: D♯ sits on the third string at fret 8 while G♯ sits on the second at fret 9, so one finger has to tuck in behind its neighbours mid shape. Most players trim it to x9989x, giving F♯, B, D♯ and G♯, the same four pitches in the same octaves as the one finger shape at fret 4. Two grips that look nothing alike, one identical sound.

Inversions

The third inversion makes the double life obvious. G♯, B, D♯, F♯ from the bottom is a G♯ minor triad with a minor seventh on top, which is G♯m7 in root position. G♯ minor being the relative minor of B major, the tonic sixth chord of the key and the seventh chord on its vi are one object seen from two ends.

The second inversion is what xx4444 produces. Close up it puts G♯ right beside F♯; the fretboard version throws the G♯ to the top instead, which is why one finger sounds better than it looks.

Voicings

The whole step between F♯ and G♯ decides everything. Leave those two adjacent in the middle of a close voicing and the chord turns muddy. Put the G♯ on top with the F♯ well below and it opens out.

For a final chord in B major, put B in the bass with D♯, F♯ and G♯ above it in that order. For comping, drop the root and play F♯, B, D♯, G♯, light enough to become G♯m7 the moment the bass moves.

Which Keys Contain B6

• I of B major
• IV of F♯ major
• V of E major
• III of G♯ natural minor
• VI of E♭ natural minor
• VII of C♯ natural minor

Only three major keys hold all four notes, and they are neighbours on the sharp side: B, F♯ and E. Four note chords are choosy in a way triads are not.

The E♭ minor entry comes with a warning. That scale is written in flats, so the same four sounds appear there as C♭, E♭, G♭ and A♭, a chord labelled C♭6. The keys under your fingers are identical. Only the letters differ, because the key signature around them demands it.

Every note of B6 is also in the B major pentatonic scale, B, C♯, D♯, F♯, G♯. The chord is that scale minus its second degree, which is why sliding sixth shapes sit so well under country and blues playing in this key.

Where B6 Shows Up

Try the first row at a keyboard. B6 and G♯m7 hold the same four notes, so the loop’s first two chords are one right hand shape with the bass moving down a third underneath. Half of a well worn progression turns out to be one chord relabelled.

The second row belongs to the guitar. E6 and A6 sit in open position and B6 needs only the fret 2 barre, so a twelve bar in E can run entirely on sixth chords without a change of texture. That is the backbone of western swing, rockabilly and surf, and it is why B6 reaches players’ hands long before it reaches their reading.

The third row is the chord’s most common job, ending things. A tune in B finishing on Bmaj7 has an A♯ a semitone under the tonic, and a singer holding that B will feel it. B6 ends on G♯ instead, resolved but not as blunt as the bare triad.

The last row is the weak spot. In E major, B is the dominant and a dominant is meant to push. B6 contains G♯, the third of E, so the chord half arrives before the tonic does and the cadence goes slack. Lean on E with B7 and its A natural instead. Note too that a small 6 means first inversion in Roman numeral analysis, so V6 in E major does not say B6; charts dodge that by naming the chord.

Related Chords

• B Major Chord
• B Minor Chord
• B Sus4 Chord
• Guitar Chord Shapes and the CAGED System
• B Major Pentatonic Scale
• B Major Scale: Notes, Chords, and How to Play It

Learn More

• Diatonic Chords: A Beginner’s Guide
• Seventh Chords: The Complete Guide
• Extended Chords and Jazz Harmony
• Chord Inversions and Voice Leading
• The Circle of Fifths Explained