Triads
B♭ minor chord
Darker and more melancholy than major, but just as stable.
B♭m is the ii chord in A♭ major, iii in F♯ major and vi in D♭ major. In minor keys: i in B♭ minor and iv in F minor.
- Notes
- B♭D♭F
- Formula
- 1♭35
- Built from
- root · minor 3rd · perfect 5th
How to play B♭m
About the B♭ minor chord
B♭ minor has five flats and a deep, sombre quality. It’s the relative minor of D♭ major and appears often in piano music and R&B.
Playing it
There’s no open-string way to play B♭m on guitar with the root in the bass, so the standard shape is a barre across the 1st fret (x13321).
On piano, B♭m has two black keys (B♭ and D♭) and one white key.
On ukulele the usual B♭m shape is 3111, with a small 3-string barre at the 1st fret.
Related chords
B♭m shares two of its three notes with D♭ (D♭ and F), its relative major, and with G♭ (B♭ and D♭). That overlap is why these chords sound so natural next to each other — and why they can often stand in for one another.
Move a single note and B♭m becomes a different chord: raise D♭ to D for B♭, add A♭ for B♭m7, swap D♭ for E♭ for B♭sus4 and lower D♭ to C for B♭sus2.
Where you’ll hear it
You’ll find B♭m in common progressions such as A♯m–F♯–C♯–G♯ (the minor-feel pop progression in C♯ major), B♭m–G♭–D♭–A♭ (the epic minor progression in B♭ minor) and B♭m–E♭m–F–B♭m (the minor cadence in B♭ minor).
