F Minor guitar chord
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About Fm — 1st inversion
Fm is F, Ab and C — F 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.
Fm notes and formula
| F | Ab | C |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 |
Tonic — minor chords rest as readily as major ones.
Also written Fmin, F- or F minor. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Fm
Fm in 1st inversion puts Ab in the bass instead of F, the 3rd of the chord. The notes are the same; what changes is what the bass line does, which is most of why you would reach for it — it lets the lowest voice move by step where the root would have jumped.
2 of Fm’s 9 common shapes do this: xx6564, x-11-10-10-9-x.
Start with xx3564 — no barre and low, at the 3rd fret. None of the shapes for Fm uses an open string, so every one of them is movable; the lowest sits at the 1st fret. 3 of the 9 need a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 133111 | 1st fret | F, root position | F | barred |
| xx3111 | 1st fret | F, root position | F | barred |
| xx3564 | 3rd fret | F, root position | Ab | all fretted |
| xx6564 | 4th fret | Ab, 1st inversion | Ab | all fretted |
| x8656x | 5th fret | F, root position | F | all fretted |
| x-8-10-10-9-8 | 8th fret | F, root position | C | all fretted |
| x-11-10-10-9-x | 9th fret | Ab, 1st inversion | Ab | all fretted |
| 13-11-10-10-x-13 | 10th fret | F, root position | F | all fretted |
| 13-15-15-13-13-13 | 13th fret | F, root position | F | barred |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 47 triad voicings, each on its own page.
How to use Fm
How you get to it. The turn that lands on Fm is Gm7♭5 to C7♭9: the ii and the V of F minor, which is where a minor tonic is usually arrived at rather than simply begun on.
In which keys. Every note of Fm belongs to C minor (the iv), C# major (the iii), Eb major (the ii), F minor (the i), Ab major (the vi) and Bb minor (the v).
What to play over Fm
Every note of Fm is in F minor pentatonic, F blues, F dorian, F natural minor and F phrygian.
Chords near Fm
Change one note of Fm and you have F (the minor third becomes a major third), Fdim (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), Fsus2 (the minor third becomes a ninth), Fsus4 (the minor third becomes a fourth), Fm6 (add the sixth) or Fm7 (add the flat seventh).
Fm is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On Fm’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.