when can I use the 6th, 7th & 9th chords?

9th chords are often a "jazzy" way of playing a 7th chord in a blues progression. At least that is how I often use them. Easy substitute. Try using them instead of 7ths on your IV or V chords in a blues progression.
 
Isn't the I6 just outside of Bolton? Oh, wait, that's the M6. I6 is in Texas?

And remember, almost always, an interstate highway with an odd number runs north & south, while the even-numbered "I" highways run east and west.
 
Music has so many different languages within it, it's very tricky working out what the questions actually are. In guitar conversation, I tend to assume we are not talking about music theory, traditional notation and Chord numbers, as it then gets confusing for somebody who doesn't speak that version of the language. In a fake book C6 is pretty common, and as a chord just adds the A, but the important thing is that practically every rock and roll and blue song adds an A rhythmically flipping the G to an A and back with your little finger, and by extension you can follow the bass players fingers and run the G up to the A, then the Bb then C and to the ninth, the D - IF, it's appropriate - so in fake book language, thats C, C6, C7 and C9 all covered.

I always think of the differences in the chords telling the story, so in that sequence, your ear hears the ascending melody of the changing notes and it has to go somewhere, so it's the next chord that might be the critical one - what comes next? an Eb chord, maybe, or maybe not.

C6 sounds like C6 in isolation, but contains the same notes as Am7 - so Am, is subtly different to C6, as it misses out one note, but that's really it. I always love the discussions on what exactly the Beatle's Chord is at the start of Hard Days Night. Loads of absolutely correct answers (that are different) but what makes it work is the whole thing - just a great combination of notes. If you play the chord with different fingers on different strings, or on the wrong instrument, it's just close but not close enough.

I-IV-V type chord descriptions don't work so well nowadays because they don't get taught in school, at least here, so this way of numbering chords confuses. Worse is that chords are always taught in piano terms, never guitar, so see C, and most kids fresh from school can prod C-E-G, but play G-C-E and they have no clue!

As I'm qualified as a teacher, I figured I would fill in some spare time with some teaching - bad move! It is so dreadful, it make me cringe, so I don't do that any more. I think the kids who learn on guitar make a much better sound because they don't need to know the physics, just the sound, so a beginner playing guitar can sound pretty good, but somebody at the same musical stage playing piano sounds totally awful, because the piano player with all first position root chords simply shunted up and down the keyboard is just not how the piano was meant to be played. Guitarist who learn the bar chord E Major and minor fingering and just go up and down the fretboard can play almost every chord and thus every song, but very few learn to play like that - thank goodness!
 
I did, originally. The only chords I knew for about 3 years were E (maj/min/maj7/min7) and A(maj/min/maj7/min7) and I just did what I had to to get them in the right places. Didn't learn D/C/G till 6 years ago when I started getting serious about acoustic. Never learned a scale till this year...fingering in all the 4/6/7/9 stuff I'm still working on...I know all the theory from 14 years of piano lessons, lots of theory, years and years in at school and out of school bands and a year at college...well college taught me nothing, but that's another story. Point is, knowing and applying are two different things, just as any other field. Knowing how to rebuild an engine does not make you proficient at it...doing it does.
 
...I know all the theory from 14 years of piano lessons, lots of theory, years and years in at school and out of school bands and a year at college...well college taught me nothing, but that's another story. Point is, knowing and applying are two different things, just as any other field. Knowing how to rebuild an engine does not make you proficient at it...doing it does.
16 in my first garage band I got a good solid 'bump 'cause I'd figured out the chords to 'Under My Thumb'. I was hooked from then. All these cool progressions (out there) were like ear training.
Somewhere about then my dad clued me in. 'Oh, you just got exposed to one of the basic paths in songs and music- the 'circle of fifths'.
:)
 
The problem with your question is your not really saying where the chord is coming from, I realize that's your question but honestly learn theory you'll go a lot further I went to mi and Berklee when I was younger best money I ever spent
Otherwise you'll just be chasing your harmonic structures
Official Tommy Osuna Website
 
The real answer to this question is that you can play these chords any time you damn well please! A lot of times, they are most effective when they fall in the "wrong" place.
 
I like to use a Gmaj6th in place of the Emin7th at times and a Gmaj7th in place of a G added F# .
These chords add a lot of coloration to chord progressions.
 
This is like learning a language properly so you can have an unplanned conversation with a native speaker, vs trying to learn phrase books and asking which way is the railway station, and then being totally unable to understand the answer. Loads of people here make excellent musical suggestions, but to somebody who speaks a different language, there is no understanding. In essence you need to get from one chord with a bass note, to another, and the journey can be short and direct, or over the mountains. Only knowing how it works, either naturally, or by study makes sense. When you are playing, you have no time to run through all the methods you have read or learned, you just have to do it. When you play live, and especially when you don't know what you are playing you need to be able to empathise with the music, which will set the style and the 'way' you play.

Surely, you use any note if it is appropriate -even wrong ones, if you can make them into a feature!
 
These...
...are essentially just inversions of the same chord.

This...

...I don't understand, G (GMajor?) with an added F# is exactly GM7. ???

Yes, it appears to me that you are the one that does understand, Ash' . These aren't different chords. These are simply different inversions and voicings of the same chord in a given context.

It sometimes seems as though we are witnessing a music theory seminar at a CPA convention.

My thread hurts.
 
I'm far from knowledgeable about music theory, but my rule of thumb is this. In a major key, I'll try out the major seventh on the I and the IV chord. I'll try out a dominant seventh on the V chord and sometimes the I chord. I'll try a minor seventh on the vi, ii, and iii chords.

Then, it either sounds good or it doesn't. With 6, 9, 11, and 13 chords, I usually find those when I'm working out the chords on guitar. If they add something, I'll keep them.
 
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