Chord & FretCm7 · Ukulele
Cm7 is CmCmCmCm with its shoulders down: the same serious subject, told calmly. Give the audio below a listen and hear the change in tone of voice.
Listen first
What you just heard
The recipe: take the Cm you know — C, D#, G — and add A# on top. Go back to the audio and catch the arpeggio note by note 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 ukulele, the high reentrant G makes every shape light — and with four strings, every note is exposed. 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. Go note by note, like checking signatures. A muffled chord here is a double waste.
2 more shapes of this chord on the neck
That's 218,399 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · see 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 Cm7?
Cm7: C minor with Seventh. The notes are C, Eb, G, Bb (fixed-do: Do, Mi♭, Sol, Si♭) — the degrees 1–b3–5–b7.
Where this chord lives
Here's the backstage secret: Cm7'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 C minor, v7 in F minor, iv7 in G 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 · use it in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · try it in Chord & Fret
Where it tends to go
Treating Cm7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it tends to go toward the pre-dominant (Dm / F) or the dominant (G / B°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
Every shape of Cm7 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. Works offline, no account needed.
When you want to go further
For improvising, 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 Dorian ♭2 (C Db Eb F G A Bb · 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 polish.
C Dorian
4 more scale positions on the neck
Chord & Fret Pro maps 35,178 mapped scale shapes — hear and play them all.
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 & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over Cm7 as home, the C Aeolian scale fits entirely — 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 & Fret
Remember I said it's setting something up? This is it: F7. Play Cm7 → F7 and you've just built half a ii–V — the gear that's been turning jazz for a hundred years.