Chord & FretBm · Ukulele
Turn off the living-room light without moving a thing. Same furniture; different mood. That's exactly what Bm does to B major. Tap the player below 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: B and F# stayed put. Only the middle one dropped — a half step, the smallest distance in music — and became D. 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 ukulele, the high reentrant G makes every shape light — and with four strings, every note is exposed. 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: B major, then Bm, 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 · use it in Chord & Fret
Once the first shape comes out without thinking, the positions below are waiting. That's where Bm lives in songs that roam the neck.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is Bm?
Bm: B minor. The notes are B, D, F# (fixed-do: Si, Re, Fa#) — the degrees 1–b3–5.
Where this chord lives
In real music, Bm works almost always as v in E minor, iv in F# minor, i in B 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 · see it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · open in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating Bm as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (C#m / E) or the dominant (F# / A#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
When you want to go further
To solo over it, B Dorian (B C# D E F# G# A · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); B Aeolian (B C# D E F# G A · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); B Phrygian (B C D E F# G A · 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.
B Dorian
4 more scale positions on the neck
That's over 35,000 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
The same B 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 Bm as home, the B Aeolian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (F#) pulls back, the leading tone Bb is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Dmaj7 — Relative major (♭III)
- E7 — It's the ii; resolves to this V
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · try it in Chord & Fret
This chord has a calmer sibling: Bm7. Same seriousness, relaxed shoulders — worth the visit.
Every shape of Bm 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.