So You Want To Play a Cm7 Chord!
Oooh, this chords name sounds fancy… Cm7 Guitar Chord… woah! But it’s really not that hard to play! In this guide, I will show you the two easiest and most common ways to play it. The Am7 and Em7 shape variations!
The Cm7 guitar chord is not a beginner chord, mostly due to the fact it has limited situations in which it is used, but it is still important to learn!
Now this chord is a barre chord, similar to the F chord, but on the third fret and you lift your pinky finger… so no big difference. Let’s get to it!
The Guitar Cm7 Chord Shape (Am7 variation shape)
Musicians call this chord the Cm7 in the Am7 shape because it uses the same shaping as an Am7 chord, just with the third fret barred! So if you can play this you can play Am7! Yay!
And just for good measure so you know if you’re playing it right. Here is how it sounds!
Tip 1, Proper Finger Placement
- Barre your Index finger over the 3rd fret from the A string to the little E string.
- Place your Ring finger on the 5th fret of the D string.
- Place your Middle finger on the 4th fret of the B string.
Tip 2, Know What It Means!
It never hurts to know music theory, so just going over the basics of the Cm7 Guitar chord here if you don’t know!
Cm7, stands for the C Minor Seven chord, that means this chord is a C minor chord, the notes C, D# and G with an additional seventh the A#!
Tip 3, Changes From Cm7 to Fm7 and Gm7
This is a common change within the blues. As these are the changes you will have to do in 12 bar blues progression if you use the Cm7 guitar chord.
You can also add Am7 and Em7, to the chord change practices. Just practice going back and forth for 1 minute for each of these chords. In total that’s four minutes of practice but it will do you a lot of good!
The Cm7 Chord Shape (Em7 variation shape)
- Barre your Index finger all of the strings on the 8th fret.
- Place your Ring finger on the 10th fret of the A string.
This is another popular variation on the Cm7 guitar chord, so practice this one well! We call it the Em7 variation because it is in the shape of Em7 just 8 frets down!
Take Away
The Cm7 Guitar Chord is quite a fun chord to play, and up the fretboard, you should play an Em7 variation and then when you are at the top of the fret board use. the Am7 variation!
Dave N. Bennett
Hi, I'm Dave. I've been playing instruments since I was just a little kid. I've worked at Guitar Center and tried producing nearly every genre of music. I've graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, and now I perform locally and write and practice music. I also run this blog where I share interesting things I've learned. I hope you Enjoy my posts!
