Chord & FretF#m · Guitar
Turn off the living-room light without moving a thing. Same furniture; different mood. That's exactly what F#m does to F# major. Press play down there and watch the light go out.
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 sunshine from drizzle.
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 — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Now the exercise that teaches more than any paragraph: 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
Part of over 200,000 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · see 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.
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 · 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: 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 · open in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over F#m as home, the F# Aeolian scale fits entirely — 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 · open in Chord & Fret
This chord has a calmer sibling: F#m7. Same seriousness, relaxed shoulders — worth the visit.
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. No ads, no trackers.