Category: D Guitar Chords

Dm Guitar Chord

The D minor guitar chord is often referred to as the saddest sounding chord on guitar, and it also has dark and haunting qualities to its sound. D minor is made up of three different notes – D is the root note, A is the perfect 5th, and F is the minor 3rd.

First you will learn the open D minor chord, here is the chord diagram for this:

D minor guitar chord diagram

Following this open chord, we next take a look at the Dm barre chord that begins at the 5th fret of the A string (a D note). When playing this chord, be sure not to play the low E string because we want the lowest sounding note to be the root, which is D of course! Here is the D minor barre chord diagram:

D minor bar chord with an A string root

Next up is the full D minor barre chord with an E string root note of D, which begins at the 10th fret of the low E string. The challenge here is to barre down on the G, B and high e strings using the index finger, and to hear all the notes clearly with no buzz sounds or muted notes. This is always the greatest challenge for beginner guitar players when holding down minor barre chords. Here is the chord diagram for the Dm barre chord with an E string root:

D minor bar chord E string root
The nice thing about these chord shapes is that partial chords can be played along the G B and e strings, with an open D string to give some cool sounding D minor chord shapes as shown in this guitar lesson video.

D Guitar Chord

The D guitar chord played in the open position on guitar is proabably the happiest sounding of all the guitar chords! A D major chord is made up of the notes D (root note), A (perfect 5th) and F# (major 3rd). In this D chord guitar lesson you’ll learn several voicings and positions to play D major on your guitar.

The first D chord shape you will learn is probably the most important, it’s a D major open chord:

D major open chord
Next we take a look at some interesting D chord shapes that are played further up the guitar neck. The nice thing about these shapes is we can play the open D string with them and this gives us some unique voicings for this guitar chord. It’s also helpful to learn the full D major barre chord which is played at the 10th fret starting on the low E string:

D major bar chord
This lesson finishes off by showing you the cool sounding open D octave chord. It’s a tight chord to hold but it definately sounds sweet with those high notes in there! This octave chord is the same shape as the open chord, but is played up one octave (12 frets away).