Chord & FretDm7 · Cavaquinho
End of the workday, headphones on, the bus moving slowly — and, strangely, everything's fine. That state of mind has a chord symbol: Dm7. Tap the player below and recognize it.
Listen first
What you just heard
The recipe: take the DmDmDmDm you know — D, F, A — and add C 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, with 1 open string on your side — 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. Go note by note, like checking signatures. A muffled chord here is a double waste.
2 more shapes 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 · use it 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 Dm7?
Dm7: D minor with Seventh. The notes are D, F, A, C (fixed-do: Re, Fa, La, Do) — the degrees 1–b3–5–b7.
Where this chord lives
Here's the backstage secret: Dm7'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 i7 in D minor, v7 in G minor, iv7 in A 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 · try it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · see it in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating Dm7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (Em / G) or the dominant (A / C#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
Every shape of Dm7 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. Made by musicians, no ads.
When you want to go further
For improvising, D Dorian (D E F G A B C · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); D Aeolian (D E F G A Bb C · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); D Dorian ♭2 (D Eb F G A B C · 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.
D Dorian
4 more scale positions on the neck
That's 35,178 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
The same D 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 Dm7 as home, the D Aeolian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (A) pulls back, the leading tone C# is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · open in Chord & Fret
The thing this chord is preparing has a name: G7. Chain the two and there it is — half a ii–V in your pocket, jazz's favorite sentence.