F Minor
m
0 - 3 - 7Root + minor 3rd + perfect 5th
About F Minor
F minor is the first barre chord many guitarists meet after F major, and it is marginally easier: the middle finger comes off. What remains is a full barre at the first fret holding four notes with three fingers, at the stiffest point of the neck, for a chord whose notes — F, A♭, C — the open strings do not help with at all.
The notes
F, A♭, C — root, minor third, perfect fifth. The A♭ is the difficulty: it exists nowhere as an open string, and it is a semitone below the A that does. Every voicing has to fret it.
Raise the A♭ to A and the chord becomes F major. The two shapes differ by one finger and by a great deal of mood, which makes them a useful pair for hearing what the third does.
Where to play it
First fret, low E root, E minor shape barred — the standard and the hardest. Eighth fret with the root on the A string gives the same chord higher and easier, because the frets are closer together and the strings are less tense there.
Many players avoid the first-fret version entirely by using a capo, which raises the whole neck and turns F minor into a shape they already know. That is not a compromise so much as standard practice on record.
Where it shows up
F minor is the vi of A♭ major and the ii of E♭ — flat keys, brass keys, and rarely guitar keys. It also appears as the parallel minor of F major, borrowed for a darker chorus.
In its own key the surrounding chords are B♭m, C, D♭ and E♭ — four flats and no open shapes. Songs written in F minor almost always came from a piano or a sequencer.