Chord & FretAm · Electric guitar
Two seconds of homework. Play a A major — or just hit play on its page — and right after, listen to this page's audio. Same name, same root. But something got heavier. Nobody has to explain sadness for you to recognize it: that's Am.
Listen first
What you just heard
The trick is smaller than it sounds. Two of the three notes didn't move: A and E stayed put. Only the middle one dropped — a half step, the smallest distance in music — and became C. Now listen to the arpeggio, one note at a time and stop at the second note. That's the one. Half a step separates sunshine from drizzle.
Now it's your hands' turn
On the electric guitar a chord needs only a few clear notes — the amp sustains them and fills the space, so you mute the strings you are not playing and let the tone carry the rest. So the first position below is your way in (2 open strings helping) — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. And do the exercise that's worth a whole lesson: A major, then Am, then major again. Back and forth ten times, slowly. Your ear learns the difference before your brain does.
1 more shape of this chord on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps over 200,000 voicings and inversions — hear and play them all.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · open in Chord & Fret
Once the first shape comes out without thinking, the positions below are waiting. That's where Am lives in songs that roam the neck.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is Am?
Am: A minor. The notes are A, C, E (fixed-do: La, Do, Mi) — the degrees 1–b3–5.
Where this chord lives
In real music, Am works almost always as v in D minor, iv in E minor, i in A minor. In global pop it's the famous vi: the serious detour a chorus takes without leaving the 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 · try it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · use it in Chord & Fret
Real songs pass through here: Pop · axis · Pop · axis rotação · Choro · ciclo de dominantes (diatônico) · Jazz · rhythm changes (A section) · Flamenco · Andalusian cadence
Where it tends to go
Treating Am as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (Bm / D) or the dominant (E / G#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
When you want to go further
When it's time to improvise, A Dorian (A B C D E F# G · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); A Aeolian (A B C D E F G · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); A Phrygian (A Bb C D E F G · 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.
A Dorian
3 more scale positions on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps over 35,000 mapped scale shapes — hear and play them all.
The same A 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 · open in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over Am as home, the A Aeolian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (E) pulls back, the leading tone Ab is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Cmaj7 — Relative major (♭III)
- D7 — It's the ii; resolves to this V
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · see it in Chord & Fret
There's one step left in this story. The serious Am you just learned has a softer, late-afternoon version that lo-fi and bossa nova love: Am7. Go hear the difference.
Every shape of Am 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. Free to start, no card needed.