About F#m — triad voicings
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
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.
F#m has 46 of them, on the high-middle three, the top three strings, the low-middle three, the top four strings, the bottom four strings, the middle four strings, the bottom three strings, strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from the 2nd fret up to the 14th — every inversion the chord has: F# in the bass, A in the bass and C# in the bass. The one to learn first is the F# shape at the 2nd fret, 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 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 |
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.