D 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 Dm — triad voicings
Dm is D, F and A — D 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.
Dm notes and formula
| D | F | A |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 |
Tonic — minor chords rest as readily as major ones.
Also written Dmin, D- or D minor. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Dm
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.
Dm has 49 of them, on the bottom three strings, the top three strings, the top four strings, the bottom four strings, the high-middle three, the middle four strings, the low-middle three, strings 5-3-2-1 and strings 6-4-3-2, from open position up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: D in the bass, F in the bass and A in the bass. The one to learn first is the F shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
6 of them sit on the top 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 xx0231 — no barre and 1 open string. 1 of the 10 shapes here sits in open position. 2 of the 10 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| xx0231 | open position | D, root position | F | 1 open string |
| xx3231 | 1st fret | F, 1st inversion | F | all fretted |
| x5323x | 2nd fret | D, root position | D | all fretted |
| x57765 | 5th fret | D, root position | A | all fretted |
| x8776x | 6th fret | F, 1st inversion | F | all fretted |
| 10-8-7-7-x-10 | 7th fret | D, root position | D | all fretted |
| 10-12-12-10-10-10 | 10th fret | D, root position | D | barred |
| x-x-12-10-10-10 | 10th fret | D, root position | D | barred |
| x-x-12-14-15-13 | 12th fret | D, root position | F | all fretted |
| x-x-15-14-15-13 | 13th fret | F, 1st inversion | F | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 1 open string voicings, each on its own page.
How to use Dm
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Dm is Em7♭5 to A7♭9: the ii and the V of D minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Dm belongs to C major (the ii), D minor (the i), F major (the vi), G minor (the v), A minor (the iv) and Bb major (the iii).
What to play over Dm
Every note of Dm is in D minor pentatonic, D blues, D dorian, D natural minor and D phrygian.
Chords near Dm
Change one note of Dm and you have D (the minor third becomes a major third), Ddim (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Dsus2 (the minor third becomes a ninth), Dsus4 (the minor third becomes a fourth), Dm6 (add the sixth) or Dm7 (add the flat seventh).
Dm is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Dm’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.