Chord & FretEm · Cavaquinho
Two seconds of homework. Play a E major — or just hit play on its page — and right after, listen to this page's audio. Same name, same root. But something got heavier. Nobody has to explain sadness for you to recognize it: that's Em.
Listen first
What you just heard
The trick is smaller than it sounds. Two of the three notes didn't move: E and B stayed put. Only the middle one dropped — a half step, the smallest distance in music — and became G. Now listen to the arpeggio, one note at a time and stop at the second note. That's the one. Half a step separates sunshine from drizzle.
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 (2 open strings helping) — it's also the easiest one to play. Now the exercise that teaches more than any paragraph: E major, then Em, 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
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 · try it in Chord & 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.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is Em?
Em: E minor. The notes are E, G, B (fixed-do: Mi, Sol, Si) — the degrees 1–b3–5.
Where this chord lives
In real music, Em works almost always as i in E minor, v in A minor, iv in B 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 · open in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · use it in Chord & Fret
Real songs pass through here: Sertanejo · eixo pop · Folk · axis
Where it tends to go
Treating Em as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (F#m / A) or the dominant (B / D#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
Every shape of Em 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
When it's time to improvise, E Dorian (E F# G A B C# D · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); E Aeolian (E F# G A B C D · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); E Phrygian (E F G A B C D · 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.
E Dorian
3 more scale positions on the neck
Part of 35,178 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
The same E 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 Em as home, the E Aeolian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (B) pulls back, the leading tone Eb is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · see it in Chord & Fret
There's one step left in this story. The serious Em you just learned has a softer, late-afternoon version that lo-fi and bossa nova love: Em7. Go hear the difference.