The F Minor 7 Piano chord consists of seven notes that span its structure: root, minor third, perfect fifth and minor seventh chord. As it is triad chord, it can easily be played using fingerings in both hands for playing.
An instrumental composition written in the key of f minor usually features chords from its relative major key; however, it may also use chords borrowed from other keys.
Scale
The F minor 7 chord is a four-note chord composed of a root, minor third, perfect fifth and minor seventh note; commonly abbreviated Fm7 or sometimes Fmin7. The keyboard diagram below demonstrates all three inversions of this chord that can be played either with thumb, index finger middle finger ring finger (left hand) or with thumb index middle and little finger on right hand (right hand).
Before beginning to construct an F minor 7 chord, it is crucial to understand its key. A chord’s key comes from its base scale; each note in a chord has its own note interval quality that determines its sound and how it can be constructed. Each quality also has an abbreviation that can serve as an alternate to indicate whether flat(b) or sharp(#) accidentals may be needed in piano diagrams.
As an aid in this first lesson step, a piano keyboard diagram of the F natural minor scale, with all notes from its octaves highlighted, will be provided as part of this tutorial. It will serve as the basis of creating chords. When doing so, note interval names will be calculated using this diagram’s scale notes as an aid.
Every note interval quality is represented by a number from 1-9, with the exception of perfect fifth which has no number. Major scale note intervals have various short names or abbreviations that indicate whether they require flat(b) and/or sharp(#) accidentals and these are listed in the table below.
This chart can help to demonstrate the differences in note interval qualities, as well as which ones require either flat(b) or sharp(#) adjustments as they do not always remain the same in every chord type. This is especially useful when learning chord construction in foreign keys – like F minor 7 in this tutorial.
Alternative, more intuitive approaches for distinguishing chords include considering their third notes: in major scales this tends to mean raising them while for minor scales it usually means lowering them and thus creating minor chords.
Triads
F Minor 7 (m7 or fm7) is a four-note chord consisting of F sharp, A, C# and E; it is often abbreviated as such. Although part of a set of diatonic seventh chords found within a particular key, there remain additional options available to musicians playing music written for F minor; even when using that key itself. A given piece may use F minor as its base while still borrowing chords from nearby major and minor keys for harmonic contrast.
Every seventh chord has an inherent quality (diminished, semi-diminished, minor, minor-major augmented, major and augmented-major) which determines its overall sound. This quality can be determined based on note intervals between its initial three notes as well as scale degree of the root note’s major scale degree.
To build a seventh chord, start by starting with a triad, composed of the root note, minor third, and perfect fifth notes. Next add in minor seventh notes until your chord is complete.
Step two of creating your triad is selecting its chord quality; this will determine its name. Use the Scale Chord summary table above as a resource; its “Note Interval” column contains scale degree numbers while “Quality Names” gives the chord quality names associated with these interval numbers.
An F minor i7 chord, for instance, comprises notes F – A – C or DO ME SO in solfege; its second interval from its root has been reduced in order to produce its diminished sound.
This same process is also used when building the iv7 chord (subdominant), built from G – Bb – Db and the vii7 chord (dominant), constructed from Db – Fb – Ab. As can be seen, this process requires more practice and memorization to become second nature.
There are various online chord construction tools that can assist in building and learning these triads, both interactively and via printed charts for reference while working.
Inversions
Inversions are a means of altering the order of notes that make up a chord, changing its sound while also serving to build up progressions of chords without losing their distinctive sounds.
Root position and 1st inversion are the two primary inversions for chord inversion. We will examine root position here, consisting of notes F, Ab, and C on an interactive piano chart shown below. Fingerings used to play this chord could include flat(b) or sharp(#). Each white key could also have an accidental name depending on what key you’re in!
Note: For this lesson, we are using F minor as our key of reference; however, the same principles apply for any key that has similar chord qualities.
As soon as a F minor 7 chord has been inverted for the first time, its root note (F) must move up by one octave or note until note 13 at the end of its scale is reached and becomes the last note in its chord structure. Inversions alter each note within the chord; note pitches define its quality – please see Chord Quality Chart below for more details.
To create the remaining inversions of an F minor 7 chord, start from its bottom positioned voicing of F and move it upward to create inversions of it.
This lesson only covered major 7th chord inversions; however, you can easily adapt these for other minor key chords by altering their roots – try changing G, B, or D to explore new sounds – great way to practice inversions while learning how changing roots can drastically change how a chord sounds! This exercise also allows you to gain experience practicing inversions while learning about how altering roots can dramatically transform their sound and alter its tone!
Modes
Musical modes are used to classify various kinds of musical sound. Also referred to as colors of sound, musical modes allow musicians to describe spectrums of brightness and saturation within musical sounds. For instance, dark blue modes may sound more intense and murky than bright red ones.
Modes in modern music use intervals of whole and half steps that divide an octave into pitches. There are seven musical modes used today; four of these follow major scale rules while three follow minor scale guidelines.
This lesson introduces the F natural minor scale and its chords. You will become acquainted with its intervals that produce each chord quality as they relate to its triad chord quality, as well as how you can play its finger patterns on piano.
Minor scale intervals consist of Ionian and Dorian triads; these form the core of all minor seventh chords. Lydian and Mixolydian triads offer more exotic soundscapes; often used in jazz music.
If you are unfamiliar with Ionian and Dorian triads, they can seem more complex at first. Once you learn the fundamentals, however, picking up techniques should become simpler.
An essential aspect of understanding musical modes is their relationships between each other. All but the Aeolian and Phrygian modes are derived from major scale keys; when learning these modes they serve as building blocks to compose songs in various keys; for instance in major keys you could use Aeolian and Phrygian as parallel minors, while Lydian, Aeolian and Dorian modes provide triads and Dorian chords may provide dominant 7th chords respectively.
To identify which triad chords can be played on any mode, the next step should be looking at the key signature of major and minor scales. Each scale contains an indication of its number of flats and sharps in key; then this key signature can be applied to various modes to determine what chords can be played there.