Chord and FretEm · Guitar
Quick test. Play a E major — or just hit play on its page — and right after, hit the play button down here. 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 guitar, six strings give the chord room to breathe — some positions use them all, others ask you to mute the lowest ones. So the first position below is your way in (4 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
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 Em 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. Works offline, no account needed.
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 · 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: Sertanejo · eixo pop · Folk · axis
Where it tends to go
Treating Em as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (F#m / A) or the dominant (B / D#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
When you want to go further
To solo over it, 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
4 more scale positions on the neck
Chord and Fret Pro maps 35,178 mapped scale shapes — hear and play them all.
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 · try it in Chord and 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 · open in Chord and Fret
This chord has a calmer sibling: Em7. Same seriousness, relaxed shoulders — worth the visit.