Hey Friend,

Continuing on with the D minor theme, I've put together tabs for various D minor shapes and location you may encounter.

Since the CAGED method is an easy way to demonstrate five different shapes, I went ahead and applied the idea to our D minor chord. When you look at the tabs, you'll see I've labeled each chord with the shape it is originally derived from. 

For example, the first Dm chord is modified from the C shaped D major chord. As I stated yesterday, when you need a minor chord, identify which is the 3 note in the chord and lower it by one fret. 

This one is a root inversion chord, with note order 1 3 5, so your notes are D, F and A.

You can practice this by first playing the D major with the C shape. Then change your fingering so you lower the 3 note one fret to hear the difference. A chord like this is probably going to require using your pinky for the D note on the fifth string. Then use your middle and index fingers on the fourth and third strings, respectively.

The second shape is a modified A shape, but if you notice, it looks just like the E shape, which should be pretty easy for you to play. The A shape is a second inversion with note order 5 1 3, and as you can see, the formula for a minor chord shows here. The 3 note is flattened (moved down a semitone, or one fret)to a minor third, giving you that sad tone.

The third shape is a modified root inversion G chord shape. Use the same fingering as you did with the C shape chord above.

The fourth brings us to the E shape, which we change by lowering the 3 note a half step (semitone). Again, this is a second inversion, so the 3 note is the third string you'd touch in the down strum. See the third string? That's your 3 note F. It's two frets below the octave of the open string G. Remember, the twelfth fret gives us the same notes as playing the string open: E A D G B e (6 5 4 3 2 1)

The last chord shape in the CAGED system is D, which is modified here to make it minor. We talked about it yesterday. It's also a second inversion chord (note order 5 1 3), so the 3 note falls on the first string.

The last two chords are some relatively easy shapes. The first is a root inversion, so the notes are D, F and A. This is a great chord for anyone who likes to finger pick. You can come up with cool descending chord progressions on the first three strings (a la "My Sweet Lady" by John Denver), and this is one shape that's really easy to use. 

The second is our only first inversion chord represented in the tabs. This is another good one for you fingerpickers, although you have to fight with barring the first three strings. The note order is 3 1 5, so the 3 note falls on the third string. If you were to use your index finger to barre the first two strings and move your middle finger to the third string, eleventh fret, you'd have D major. Give it a try - you can do it!

Peace~

Dave