B Minor guitar chord
Three notes across one string set.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Bm — triad voicings
Bm is B, D and F# — B with the third lowered a semitone.
It sounds darker than a major triad, and just as settled. The i of a minor key, and the vi, ii or iii of a major one.
Bm notes and formula
| B | D | F# |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 |
Tonic — minor chords rest as readily as major ones.
Also written Bmin, B- or B minor. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Bm
Three notes on one string set. No seventh, so nothing is claimed about the chord beyond its quality.
Thin on their own, excellent over a bass line or against someone else’s harmony.
Bm has 46 of them, on the top three strings, the bottom three strings, the middle four strings, the top four strings, the bottom four strings, the high-middle three, the low-middle three, strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from the 2nd fret up to the 12th — every inversion the chord has: B in the bass, D in the bass and F# in the bass. The one to learn first is the B shape at the 2nd fret, which is the easiest grip here.
6 of them sit on the middle four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with x5443x — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. None of the shapes for Bm uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 2nd fret. 2 of the 8 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 2nd fret to the 14th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| x24432 | 2nd fret | B, root position | F# | all fretted |
| x5443x | 3rd fret | D, 1st inversion | D | all fretted |
| 7544x7 | 4th fret | B, root position | B | all fretted |
| 799777 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | barred |
| xx9777 | 7th fret | B, root position | B | barred |
| x-x-9-11-12-10 | 9th fret | B, root position | D | all fretted |
| x-x-12-11-12-10 | 10th fret | D, 1st inversion | D | all fretted |
| x-14-12-11-12-x | 11th fret | B, root position | B | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 4 open string voicings, each on its own page.
How to use Bm
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Bm is C#m7♭5 to F#7♭9: the ii and the V of B minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Bm belongs to D major (the vi), E minor (the v), F# minor (the iv), G major (the iii), A major (the ii) and B minor (the i).
What to play over Bm
Every note of Bm is in B minor pentatonic, B blues, B dorian, B natural minor and B phrygian.
Chords near Bm
Change one note of Bm and you have B (the minor third becomes a major third), Bdim (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Bsus2 (the minor third becomes a ninth), Bsus4 (the minor third becomes a fourth), Bm6 (add the sixth) or Bm7 (add the flat seventh).
Bm is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Bm’s sound and use this page follows Edward Aldwell & Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading (Schirmer / Cengage, 4th ed., 2011). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.