Hey Friend,

With the various E minor shapes you're likely to encounter, I followed the same format by giving you the first five chord shapes following the CAGED system. Here are the tabs. 

The first is the C chord shape, modified to reflect that  it's a minor chord. It is a root inversion chord, so the note order is 1 3 5. We've gone ahead and moved the 3 note down one fret to get the G note in the chord. You also benefit from the open sixth string which is the E note.

The second is the A shape chord, played in the same position as the E minor barre chord (well, at least one of them). This is a second inversion chord with note order 5 1 3. As you can see, instead of a regular A shape that looks like a three string barre, this shape looks like the E shape. This is because we've lowered the 3 note down a half step to get the minor chord. So there's another pattern you should commit to memory - the minor version of an A shape chord looks like an E shape.

Third, we're looking at a G shape chord. Like the C shape, it's a root inversion, and making it minor is the same process as a C shape chord. As you can see from the chord chart, the 1 note is at the twelfth fret, which we know to be the octave of open E.

Fourth up, the E shape. Another second inversion chord, the note order is again 5 1 3. So we know the last note we strum in the triad is the 3 note, and it has been dropped down a half step to the minor third (down one fret). While the chord chart shows to use your index and middle fingers, I find it a whole lot more efficient to keep the shape fingering as I would an E major chord, with middle finger on the fifth string and my ring finger on the fourth. This frees your index finger up to move to the next chord when necessary.

Lastly, the D shape chord is another second inversion. That means we're dropping little old 3 note down a half step. It looks just like the first position D minor chord, just moved up two frets.

The following four of five chords give you a root inversion and three first inversion chords (G is the three note and acting as the root note of the chord). And then we have the last chord.

This one is a bit of an anomaly. This is because it doesn't fit the formula for an inversion. The note order is off. Here's what I mean.

A root inversion has note order 1 3 5. First inversion is 3 5 1 and second inversion is 5 1 3. But this particular E minor chord has this note order - 1 5 3. We play the open sixth E string, then the B note (which is the 5 note) and finally the G note. It has an interesting tonal quality in that the 3 note is doubled, making it sound airy.

I'll have to do some hunting, but so far I've only found one other instance of this note order, and that's with an A minor chord.

Practice these along with the C major and D minor chords. See what they sound like played in succession (C Dm Em), and then play with the order, shifting them around. We still don't have a full complement of chords to work with in the key of C, but you might come up with something interesting using these three chords.

Peace~

Dave