F# Minor guitar chord
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About F#m — 1st inversion
F#m is F#, A 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.
F#m notes and formula
| F# | A | C# |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ♭3 | 5 |
Tonic — minor chords rest as readily as major ones.
Also written F#min, F#- or F# minor. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play F#m
F#m in 1st inversion puts A 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 F#m’s 8 common shapes do this: xx7675, x-12-11-11-10-x.
Start with xx4675 — no barre and low, at the 4th fret. None of the shapes for F#m 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 244222 | 2nd fret | F#, root position | F# | barred |
| xx4222 | 2nd fret | F#, root position | F# | barred |
| xx4675 | 4th fret | F#, root position | A | all fretted |
| xx7675 | 5th fret | A, 1st inversion | A | all fretted |
| x9767x | 6th fret | F#, root position | F# | all fretted |
| x-9-11-11-10-9 | 9th fret | F#, root position | C# | all fretted |
| x-12-11-11-10-x | 10th fret | A, 1st inversion | A | all fretted |
| 14-12-11-11-x-14 | 11th fret | F#, root position | F# | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 46 triad voicings, each on its own page.
How to use F#m
How you get to it. The turn that lands on F#m is G#m7♭5 to C#7♭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 F#m belongs to C# minor (the iv), D major (the iii), E major (the ii), F# minor (the i), A major (the vi) and B minor (the v).
What to play over F#m
Every note of F#m is in F# minor pentatonic, F# blues, F# dorian, F# natural minor and F# phrygian.
Chords near F#m
Change one note of F#m and you have F# (the minor third becomes a major third), F#dim (the fifth becomes a flat fifth), F#sus2 (the minor third becomes a ninth), F#sus4 (the minor third becomes a fourth), F#m6 (add the sixth) or F#m7 (add the flat seventh).
F#m is a minor chord — root, minor third, fifth. Minor chords on every root.
On F#m’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.