Oops, sorry Clinton, I thought I was being clear. You had said earlier that you couldn't remember what chord was formed by the open strings in standard tuning. My post was just aimed at deriving names for the chord.

First, I extended your chord notation from above by allowing for the possibility of unplayed strings. I used the letter x to indicate that the string isn't played. I'm accustomed to writing E-7 for E minor seventh but decided to include the Em7 notation as well to avoid confusion.

I started with a standard four-note Em7 chord (E,G,B,D) just as a begining reference indicating that the A and treble E aren't played. Then, to get to the name for all six open string played as a chord, I added back the treble E figuring “no harm no foul,” the name wouldn't change by having a second E note in the chord. To play the open fifth string, the normal B in an E chord drops down to A which is the fourth or eleventh note in the E major scale so I called the chord made by the open strings (000000) Em11.

Of course a G6 chord is a four note chord containg the notes G,B,D,E, the very same notes that you find in an Em7 chord, just used in a different context. So the last bit is just finding a name for the chord made by playing all six open strings starting from a G6 instead of an Em7.

Better?

      - Mark