The Dmin Chord (Guitar Lesson BC-123) Guitar for beginners Stage 2

This is Stage 2, Lesson 3 of Justin's Beginner Guitar Course.

This video shows you how to play the D Minor chord and how to fix common problems with it.

The Justinguitar Beginners Guitar Course, a series of over 100 lessons on guitar for beginners. Text support is on the web site and also in a proper old skool paper book which can be ordered from the web site of your local music store :)

Taught by Justin Sandercoe.

Full support at the justinguitar web site where you will find hundreds of lessons on a wide range of subjects, and all the scales and chords that you will ever need! There is a great forum too to get help, no matter what the problem.

And it is all totally free, no bull. No sample lessons, no memberships, no free ebook. Just tons of great lessons :)

To get help with this lesson (and for further info and tabs), find the Lesson ID in the video title (like ST-667 or whatever) and then look it up on the Lesson Index page of justinguitar.com

http://www.justinguitar.com

Have fun :)

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Hey, how're you doing? Justin here again, coming at you

this time for a D minor.

Now, the other two minors were pretty easy:
the A minor was

very similar to an E
and an E minor was an E with a finger lifted off.

So, D going to be really simple as well?

Do I get into this D minor?

Unfortunately not. It's not a particularly hard chord,

it's not the big dreaded F chord that everyone dislikes.

But it requires a little bit of a kind of awkward

finger stretch for some people.

I didn't find this one too bad,

I had a lot more trouble with G chord
when I was learning guitar.

But a lot of people struggle with Dmin.

So I'm going to show you a couple of
little variations around it as well.

So, let's go to a close-up and check out this new chord.

Okay, here we are, looking at the D minor.
Now, doesn't look too bad, does it?

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking

"Justin just said it was going to be a bit difficult and that

doesn't look that hard".

Well, it is that hard.

Now, you can see here,

the third finger has got to stretch

and it's fingers one, two and three.

Now, for a lot of people, that's a little bit difficult.

I don't find it that hard now, and some people find that they angle their fingers a little bit like that,

which is kind of okay,

but I think you're better off trying to get it a little bit squarer on this one, for now.

So what we've got here, let's start off with the usual:

first finger, first string, first fret.

Second finger, second fret, third string,

and third finger has to move, you can see there, just the

way my fingers had to go from here and then go out,

it's going to the third fret of the second string.

And it's that third finger that causes a lot of people problems, trying to play this chord.

If that's you and you really struggle with this chord,

the other fingering option is to use the fourth finger.

Which I must admit that was the way I played Dm

for a long time, using fingers one, two and four.

It really doesn't make very much difference whether

you use your third or your fourth.
I prefer using my third these days,

mainly because I can use a little chord trick called a suspended chord.

In a slightly more advanced lesson.

So I think fingers one, two and three are better,

if you can stretch it.
But if you can't, you can always go for whacking

the old fourth finger down there.

Now, when it comes to playing it,

of course if you look at the chord diagram,

you'll notice that you shouldn't touch the
thickest two strings.

So starting at the fourth string, you should do your strum

. . .

pick out the notes one at a time

. . .

Those three should be pretty straight forward,

. . .

It's usually this last note, the thinnest string,

it just sounds like this for people:

. . .

And all again, it's the third finger lying down too much.

As soon as you lift it back up a little bit,

. . .

You'll find that that's what'll give you that nice roundness

in your fingers and it'll allow you to get that note.

Which is the note F, actually.

. . .

Here, on your D minor chord.

It is a really, really good chord, D minor,

and even if it does feel a little bit stretchy,

nearly everything that you do that's new,

that's a little bit hard is going to be stretchy.

And it's just a matter of getting used to it.

Especially for the next stage, we've got G and C,

which are again, even stretchier.

But one thing that can help with these chords

that have got a little bit of a stretch

is to think to rotate your hand outwards.

So if you've got your hand flat like this,

is to think of your thumb down toward the ground,

so as you're doing it,

try and think that you're pushing this part of your hand

up toward the guitar neck a bit more.

That can often help with the stretch.

If it's too long like this, feels a bit too,

see your third finger is going to be a bit long there,

so by doing that,

it helps curl up those fingers

and gets them in a good position.

So, that might be something to think about there as well.

So, have fun with your D minor.

Now we're going to try to put them together.