B Minor
m
0 - 3 - 7Root + minor 3rd + perfect 5th
About B Minor
B minor is the chord that stops most beginners cold. It sits on the second fret as a barre — one finger flattening all six strings — and the first attempt almost always buzzes. That difficulty is the whole story of this chord on guitar: the notes themselves are ordinary, B, D and F♯, but the shape asks for a hand position nothing before it required.
The notes, and why F♯ matters
B, D, F♯ — root, minor third, perfect fifth. The F♯ is what places this chord in the sharp side of the key system: B minor is the relative minor of D major, and both carry two sharps. Play B minor after a D chord and the ear hears them as siblings, because they share two of three notes.
The minor third, D, is three semitones above B. That single interval is the difference between B minor and B major; move D up one fret to D♯ and the chord turns bright. Guitarists rarely make that swap, because B major is a harder shape still.
Three ways to play it, easiest first
The two-finger version on the top strings — second fret of the A string skipped, third fret of the B string, second fret of the high E — gives the sound without the barre. It is thin but honest: the notes are right, only the low B is missing.
The four-string version starting at the second fret of the A string is the usual compromise, and it is what most tutorials mean by an easy B minor. Full barre at the second fret comes last, and it is worth learning not for this chord alone but because the same shape moves: slide it up two frets and it becomes C♯ minor.
A capo on the second fret turns B minor into an A minor shape, which is why so many songs in B minor are played that way on record.
Where it shows up
B minor is the vi chord in D major and the ii in A major — two of the most common guitar keys — which is why it appears far more often than its difficulty would suggest. A song can avoid B7 or F♯m; it rarely avoids B minor.
In its own key it takes the tonic role, and the surrounding chords are E minor, F♯ minor, G and A. That progression, Bm–G–D–A, is the backbone of a large share of pop written on guitar.