Chord & FretF#m · Cavaquinho
Quick test. Play a F# major — or just hit play on its page — and right after, press the player below. Same name, same root. But something got heavier. Nobody has to explain sadness for you to recognize it: that's F#m.
Listen first
What you just heard
The trick is smaller than it sounds. Two of the three notes didn't move: F# and C# stayed put. Only the middle one dropped — a half step, the smallest distance in music — and became A. Play the arpeggio again, no rush and stop at the second note. That's the one. Half a step separates a sunny day from a Monday morning.
Now it's your hands' turn
On the cavaquinho, four steel strings tuned D–G–B–D pack the chord into a small, bright space — every finger counts. So the first position below is your way in — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. And do the exercise that's worth a whole lesson: F# major, then F#m, then major again. Back and forth ten times, slowly. Your ear learns the difference before your brain does.
2 more shapes of this chord on the neck
That's over 200,000 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · see it in Chord & Fret
Once the first shape comes out without thinking, the positions below are waiting. That's where F#m lives in songs that roam the neck.
Every shape of F#m lives in Chord & Fret Pro — 4 instruments, 16 tunings, 41 chord types and 57 scales, in every key. Start free. Unlock everything with Pro. 100% offline. Made by musicians, no ads.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is F#m?
F#m: F# minor. The notes are F#, A, C# (fixed-do: Fa#, La, Do#) — the degrees 1–b3–5.
Where this chord lives
In real music, F#m works almost always as iv in C# minor, i in F# minor, v in B minor. In pop everywhere it tends to be the famous vi — the chord the chorus runs to when it wants to get serious without changing key. You've heard it a thousand times; now you'll start noticing it.
Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · open in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · try it in Chord & Fret
Real songs pass through here: Reggae · vamp menor
Where it tends to go
Treating F#m as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (G#m / B) or the dominant (C# / E#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
When you want to go further
When it's time to improvise, F# Dorian (F# G# A B C# D# E · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); F# Aeolian (F# G# A B C# D E · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); F# Phrygian (F# G A B C# D E · 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the minor with a lowered second — a Spanish seasoning) work in full. The swaps below are the chord's cousins: different color, same job.
F# Dorian
3 more scale positions on the neck
Part of over 35,000 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
The same F# Dorian in its main shapes along the neck — pick whichever position sits under your hand. The rings mark the guide notes (the 3rd and 7th) that carry this chord's color.
Scale — The whole scale on the neck — in boxes or 3 notes per string; on the major modes, on guitar in standard tuning, with the CAGED forms named · see it in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over F#m as home, the F# Aeolian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (C#) pulls back, the leading tone F is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Amaj7 — Relative major (♭III)
- B7 — It's the ii; resolves to this V
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · use it in Chord & Fret
There's one step left in this story. The serious F#m you just learned has a softer, late-afternoon version that lo-fi and bossa nova love: F#m7. Go hear the difference.