Chord and FretCm · Cavaquinho
Turn off the living-room light without moving a thing. Same furniture; different mood. That's exactly what Cm does to C major. Hit play below and watch the light go out.
Listen first
What you just heard
The trick is smaller than it sounds. Two of the three notes didn't move: C and G stayed put. Only the middle one dropped — a half step, the smallest distance in music — and became D#. Play the arpeggio again, no rush and stop at the second note. That's the one. Half a step separates a sunny day from a Monday morning.
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 the first position below is your way in — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Now the exercise that teaches more than any paragraph: C major, then Cm, then major again. Back and forth ten times, slowly. Your ear learns the difference before your brain does.
1 more shape of this chord on the neck
Part of 218,399 voicings and inversions in Chord and Fret Pro — see and play every one.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · use it in Chord and Fret
Got the first one? Good — the other positions will wait right here. In songs that travel up and down the neck, that's where you'll end up living.
Every shape of Cm lives in Chord and 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.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is Cm?
Cm: C minor. The notes are C, Eb, G (fixed-do: Do, Mi♭, Sol) — the degrees 1–b3–5.
Where this chord lives
In real music, Cm works almost always as i in C minor, v in F minor, iv in G minor. In global pop it's the famous vi: the serious detour a chorus takes without leaving the key. You've heard it a thousand times; now you'll start noticing it.
Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · try it in Chord and Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · see it in Chord and Fret
Real songs pass through here: Pagode · ciclo do pagode · Pagode · subida cromática · Samba · ciclo de quintas · Samba · ii-V-I
Where it tends to go
Treating Cm as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Dm / F) or the dominant (G / B°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
When you want to go further
To solo over it, C Dorian (C D Eb F G A Bb · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); C Aeolian (C D Eb F G Ab Bb · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); C Phrygian (C Db Eb F G Ab Bb · 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the minor with a lowered second — a Spanish seasoning) work in full. The swaps below are the chord's cousins: different color, same job.
C Dorian
4 more scale positions on the neck
Part of 35,178 mapped scale shapes in Chord and Fret Pro — see and play every one.
The same C 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 · try it in Chord and Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over Cm as home, the C Aeolian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (G) pulls back, the leading tone B is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · open in Chord and Fret
There's one step left in this story. The serious Cm you just learned has a softer, late-afternoon version that lo-fi and bossa nova love: Cm7. Go hear the difference.