Oct 29

D Minor Guitar Chord

How to Play D Minor Chord

You are literally not gonna get any gigs if you don’t know this one.

That’s why today we will be showing you two different versions of the D minor chord shapes.

One will be the standard D minor open chord, and the other one will be the barre chord on the 5th fret of the 5th string.

Ok, now that we’ve covered all the basics - let’s jump right in!

Watch this video to learn How to Play D Minor Chord

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Easy way of playing the D Minor Chord

Let’s start with the open D minor guitar chord.

We’ll assume you are a total newbie, so we’ll first define what an open chord is. The open chord is a chord that features open strings and is played on the first three frets.

For this one, put your index finger on the 1st fret of the 1st string. Your ring finger goes on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string. Finally, put your middle finger on the 2nd fret of the 3rd string.

As far as your picking hand goes, you are strumming the bottom 4 strings.

Advanced way of playing the D Minor Chord

Have no fear, GuitarZoom’s here! Ok, hilarious puns aside… This is a barre (barre = bar) chord. Learning how to play barre chords is a daunting task for beginners, but we’ll take you through it step by step. With a little bit of patience, you will be playing these like Mark Knopfler in no time!

For this Dm guitar chord, you have to barre your index finger across the bottom 5 strings on the 5th fret. Add your ring finger to the 7th fret of the 4th string. Your pinky goes to the 7th fret of the 3rd string. Finally, add your middle finger to the 6th fret of the 2nd string.

As far as your picking hand goes, you should be strumming the bottom 5 strings.

Guitar D Minor practice tips:

  1. While playing the open D minor guitar chord, make sure that all your open strings ring. You have to make sure that your fingers are not brushing up any unwanted strings, and thus muting them. Pick all the strings in succession, to make sure everything is ok. You may need to adjust your fretting hand’s angle

  2. When reading the D Minor chord diagram, you should know that ‘’X’’ signifies a string you do not want to play.

  3. When playing a full D Minor bar chord, pick all strings separately to make sure you have pressed them all strong enough.

  4. When placing your fingers to play this D Minor chord, make sure that you are behind the fret wire. Also, barre’s aside, make sure that you are pressing the strings with your fingertips.
Pro-tip: There are many different ways of playing the D minor chord on the guitar. Do you want to learn other versions of this chord? Other chords in D minor scale? Or like, literally everything guitar-related? If the answer is - yes, to any of the above, make sure to join the GuitarZoom membership!