Chord & FretBm7 · Cavaquinho
Put on a lo-fi playlist. Ten seconds. There — you just heard a chord like this one. Bm7 is the minor chord with its jacket off: still serious, but done making a point of it.
Listen first
What you just heard
The recipe: take the BmBmBmBm you know — B, D, F# — and add A on top. Play the arpeggio again, no rush and wait for the fourth note. It doesn't make the chord happy; it takes the weight off its shoulders. That's why bossa nova, neo-soul and the whole of R&B live here.
Now it's your hands' turn
On the cavaquinho, four steel strings tuned D–G–B–D pack the chord into a small, bright space — every finger counts. So start with the first position below — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Four notes sharing the same space, so there's one rule: every single one has to ring. Play it slowly, listen for each voice. A muffled chord here is a double waste.
1 more shape of this chord on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps 218,399 voicings and inversions — hear and play them all.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · open in Chord & Fret
Mid-neck positions are the favorites of anyone backing a singer: they leave the treble free for the voice. File it away for that day.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is Bm7?
Bm7: B minor with Seventh. The notes are B, D, F#, A (fixed-do: Si, Re, Fa#, La) — the degrees 1–b3–5–b7.
Where this chord lives
Here's the backstage secret: Bm7's classic job is being the ii — the first piece of the ii–V–I, the most-used sentence in jazz and everything jazz ever touched. Across keys you'll find it as v7 in E minor, iv7 in F# minor, i7 in B minor. In other words: this chord is almost never standing still; it's setting something up.
Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · see it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · use it in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating Bm7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (C#m / E) or the dominant (F# / A#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. It's a tendency, not a law.
Every shape of Bm7 lives in Chord & Fret Pro — 4 instruments, 16 tunings, 41 chord types and 57 scales, in every key. Start free. Unlock everything with Pro. Plays offline. Free to start, no card needed.
When you want to go further
For improvising, B Dorian (B C# D E F# G# A · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); B Aeolian (B C# D E F# G A · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); B Dorian ♭2 (B C D E F# G# A · 1 b2 b3 4 5 6 b7: a dorian with a lowered second) contain the whole chord. And the jazz shapes at the bottom are these same four notes rearranged across the neck: same chord, arranger's tailoring.
B Dorian
4 more scale positions on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps 35,178 mapped scale shapes — hear and play them all.
The same B Dorian in its main shapes along the neck — pick whichever position sits under your hand. The rings mark the guide notes (the 3rd and 7th) that carry this chord's color.
Scale — The whole scale on the neck — in boxes or three notes per string, with an exercise and a tempo ramp · open in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over Bm7 as home, the B Aeolian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (F#) pulls back, the leading tone Bb is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · try it in Chord & Fret
Remember I said it's setting something up? This is it: E7. Play Bm7 → E7 and you've just built half a ii–V — the gear that's been turning jazz for a hundred years.