A Minor Guitar Chord Lesson – Advanced Voicings

The following post contains several advanced voicings for the Am Guitar Chord.  Click here for the easy basic beginner version of the A Minor Guitar Chord.

The A Minor Guitar Chord (also known as Am, Amin) is formed from the A Major Scale: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#.  In order to find the notes needed to play the A Minor chord, we apply a certain formula.  That formula is 1, b3, 5.   This simply means that we take the 1st, flattened 3rd and 5th steps of the A Major scale, or the notes A, C and E.

The b3 or flattened third symbol means that we take the 3rd step of the A Major Scale, a “C#” and we flatten it by 1/2 step to arrive at our “C” note.

A Minor Chord notes: A C E

Below are 4 different advanced chord charts for the Am Chord.

Here is a key that will help you read the charts:

Everything on the above chart should be self explanatory, except for the last three in the third column. They may need a bit of explaining. The O, or open symbol, simply means that you do not press down on any notes on that string. The X means you do not strum that particular string. The Barre symbol means you need to barre that particular fret. When you barre a fret you are pressing down on multiple strings at the same time with one finger.