Fm Piano Chord: F Minor Chord Chart & Analysis for Piano

fm piano chord

What is a Fm Piano Chord?

The Fm piano chord stands for F minor. It is a triad chord that contains three singular notes. These notes are F, Ab and C.

Different Fm Piano Chord Voicings?

In the realm of harmony, you can invert this triad so you have a different order of these three notes. You can also duplicate certain notes to create wider sounding voicing. There’s also the possibility to play any iteration and/or voicing in any octave and the name of this chord will still simply be F minor. While you might be playing more than three notes, as long as there are only 3 unique notes, we’re still theoretically dealing with a triad.

Example of Fm Piano Chord Voicings.

  • F, Ab, C (Triad)
  • F, C, F Ab, C, F (Pop voicing, left hand plays 3 notes, right hand plays three notes)
  • …

The Intervallic Structure of the Fm Piano Chord

All minor chord inherently have the same intervallic structure. Their first interval, in this case between F and Ab is a minor third interval, while the second interval between Ab and C is a major third interval. This is a common structure in minor triads.

Minor Triad: Minor 3rd; Major 3rd.

Different Chord Groupings

In the realm of music, there are many different chords. From a pure theoretical standpoint, all chords are exactly the same. They are just interpreted differently depending on what instrument you play them on. Below I’ve made a list of all of the different chord qualities.

Triads:

  • Major
  • Minor
  • Diminished
  • Augmented

7th Chords:

  • Major 7
  • Minor 7
  • Dominant 7
  • Half Diminished
  • Minor Major 7

Song Recommendations to Practice the F Minor Chord

Once you get a grip of how to play this particular song on piano, it is then time to actually put it to the test. Transitioning between different chords is often times not easy. Below I’ve made a list of songs that include the Fm piano chord. Make sure that you first practice transitioning between all chords. Lastly, you need to make sure you can transition between all chords in real time. Ideally, I’d recommend to practice along with the original song.

How To Practice Chords?

Knowing and memorizing chords is very important. It’s like knowing vocabulary in a language. It can’t be taken too lightly, and you need to know what you’re talking about in terms of understanding the words. The same is the case in music. You need to know chords and you need to know what they entail and how to use them correctly.

Chords of A Diatonic System

When it comes to the songs mentioned above, all chords in one particular key are part of a diatonic system. If we’re in the key of F minor, the following chords are part of the diatonic system

Fm Gdim Abmaj Bbm Cm Dbmaj Ebmaj

If we’re looking at it from the point of the relative major, the following chords are used. (Same chords, just starting from Ab)

Abmaj Bbm Cm Dbmaj Ebmaj Fm Gdim

Why Are Diatonic Systems Important

When it comes to chords, they’re never just used in a random manner. In fact, 99% of todays music is based on any given diatonic system. Granted, Miles Davis did introduce modal music, where random chords were in fact used. Same goes for free jazz. But if you want to write a hit song, make sure you master chords in a structural way, just like the diatonic system mentioned above. I always think in terms of a major system, never minor. This because it’s very easy to always find the 6th degree of a major system, which is its minor equivalent.

To go back to modal music and are jazz, while I mentioned random chords are used, that isn’t 100% correct. You can’t just write music using random chords. There’s more to it. In modal music, you’re often times dealing with only 2 or 4 chords. These chords are often of the same chord quality, just like in Miles Davis‘ So What. In free jazz, you’re dealing with random chords, but the melody still follows the harmonic chord tone structure so it makes sense and it doesn’t sound like gibberish.

When we’re talking about random chords being used in free jazz, lots of time they aren’t even random chords. They are heavily reharmonizes chord progressions that seemingly look like random chords. They’ll still sound beautiful, and the melody follows the harmony, but from a diatonic system point of view, it looks a little bit like gibberish.

Conclusion

Chords and harmony are a very important element in music. We always recommend to memorize all of the triads and 7th chords. Easier said than done, but we highly recommend it. It’s the equivalent of learning vocabulary when you’re tackling a new language. If you have ever learned a new language, you understand how important it is to start with learning vocabulary. Without knowing what something means, there’s no way you’ll understand what is being said to you, and you won’t be able top have a proper conversation. The same is said when you play chordal instruments and string instruments, like harps, guitar, pianos etc.

Bottom Line

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