How to play the D Minor chord on guitar
D minor is compact and slightly awkward: the small stretch to the top string catches people out, and the two lowest strings must stay silent. It carries a darker, more serious weight than E or A minor, and folk and flamenco lean on it heavily.
D Minor is a minor triad — D, F, A. The flattened third is the single note that separates it from D major, and it is the whole reason it sounds darker.
Finger it one string at a time
- low E string: don't play it.
- A string: don't play it.
- D string: play it open.
- G string: fret 2 with your middle finger.
- B string: fret 3 with your ring finger.
- high E string: fret 1 with your index finger.
Similar to D major, but the 1st string is one fret lower.
What makes this shape awkward
- The shape spans 3 frets, so your hand has to stretch rather than sit in one position. Bring your thumb down behind the neck to open the gap between your fingers.
- 2 strings stay silent, so your strumming hand has to start on the right string. Aim the pick rather than sweeping all six.
Where you'll use it
Dm appears in 2 of the play-along progressions in RiffRoute. These are the actual sequences it sits in:
- Silk & Cedar (Neo-Soul, 80 BPM) —
Dm → G7 → C → Am - Coastal Breeze (Bossa Nova, 105 BPM) —
C → A7 → Dm → G7
Keys it belongs to
Dm is diatonic to these keys, which is why it turns up in songs written in them — the bracket is the degree it plays there:
Chords it's usually played with
In the progressions that use Dm, these turn up alongside it most often — learning them together is more useful than learning Dm alone.
Hear it and check yourself
Reading a diagram only gets you so far — the part that decides whether Dm sounds right is whether every string rings cleanly. RiffRoute plays the chord back, listens while you strum it, and tells you which string is buzzing.