Chord & FretAm · Guitar
From A major to Am, a single note moves — and it feels like the season changed. Press play down there and check.
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. 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 guitar, six strings give the chord room to breathe — some positions use them all, others ask you to mute the lowest ones. 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 · try it in Chord & Fret
Got the first one? Good — the other positions will wait right here. In songs that travel up and down the neck, that's where you'll end up living.
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. No ads, no trackers.
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 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 · see it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · open 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 usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Bm / D) or the dominant (E / G#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. It's a tendency, not a law.
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
Part of over 35,000 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
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 · use it 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 · use 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.