How To Play Guitar: Minor Chords (NG06)

What's up future rock stars!!!

Hope your guitar learning journey is going well.
Time to take a look at some minor chords.

Minor chords are typically sad sounding chords, as opposed to major chords, which sound happy. However the notes in major and minor chords are very similar. If you remember, the formula for a major chord is 1 3 5, the formula for a minor chord is 1 b3 5. This means that the third note of the chords major scale is flattened, it's one semitone lower, and that's the only difference.

In this article we are only going to discuss three open minor chords, the other minor chords will be discussed in the article about barre chords.

A minor chord(Am): A C E















D minor chord(Dm): D F A
















E minor chord(Em): E G B
















Here are some famous chord progressions using major and minor chords. Listen to the songs and practice the strumming and chord changes until you get it right.


Bob Dylan – Knocking on heavens door: G – D – Am
                                                        G – D – C

Nirvana – Polly: verse: Em – G – D – C
                       chorus: D – C – G – Bb
Bb is the same shape as the B major chord except it's played one fret lower, so
your root is on the 1^st fret of the A-string.

Have fun practicing those songs
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