How to Build D Minor Chords on the Guitar

When you're learning guitar, it helps to do a little chord building. This practice of selecting notes for a chord helps you figure out how chords are put together. The D minor chord is easier to some guitar beginners because it is a more "clustered" chord (all of the held frets are on the top three strings). Here's how to build the most common form of D minor on the guitar using an "open string" approach.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Lay out your chromatic scale. For the key of D, it's going to be D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D. You'll be using some of these notes to build your D minor chord. In the D major chord, we use the first (or base) note, the third and the fifth. For D minor, it's the same, except that you lower the third a half step.

2. Put your middle finger on the second fret of the G string (fourth string from the bottom) to create an A note, your fifth scale note.

3. Add your ring finger to the third fret of the next string toward the top, the B string (second string from top). This is your D note, your first scale note.

4. Create the minor sound by lowering the third scale note. For the major chord, you would use an F sharp note on the top string. For D minor, you want to lower this down to F. Put your index finger on the first fret of the high E string to get your F note.

5. Leave the rest of the strings open.

6. Strum all of the strings together. You'll hear a D minor sound, even though the low E string isn't part of the chord at all, and the open A might seem in conflict with emphasizing the first scale note, the D. For a "cleaner" D minor chord, strum just the top four strings of the guitar.

Tips & Warnings

• To hear how the sound changes between D major and D minor, play both chords back to back. You'll see how dropping F# down to F creates that melancholy sound you expect in a minor chord.