Chord & FretFm7 · Ukulele
Put on a lo-fi playlist. Half a song. There — you just heard a chord like this one. Fm7 is the minor chord with its jacket off: still serious, but done making a point of it.
Listen first
What you just heard
The recipe: take the FmFmFmFm you know — F, G#, C — and add D# 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 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. Play it slowly, listen for each voice. A muffled chord here is a double waste.
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 · 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 Fm7?
Fm7: F minor with Seventh. The notes are F, Ab, C, Eb (fixed-do: Fa, La♭, Do, Mi♭) — the degrees 1–b3–5–b7.
Where this chord lives
Here's the backstage secret: Fm7'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 iv7 in C minor, i7 in F 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 · see 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 Fm7 as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Gm / Bb) or the dominant (C / E°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
Every shape of Fm7 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, F Dorian (F G Ab Bb C D Eb · 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7: the minor scale with a major sixth — the minor that smirks); F Aeolian (F G Ab Bb C Db Eb · 1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7: the natural minor, the major scale's relative sibling); F Dorian ♭2 (F Gb Ab Bb C D Eb · 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.
F Dorian
4 more scale positions on the neck
That's 35,178 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
The same F 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 Fm7 as home, the F Aeolian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (C) pulls back, the leading tone E 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: A#7. Play Fm7 → A#7A#7A#7A#7 and you've just built half a ii–V — the gear that's been turning jazz for a hundred years.