Do you know how to play an A minor chord (Am) on guitar? A minor chords can be played in several different positions on the fret board, and this video lesson covers both the open Am guitar chord as well as the Am bar chord shapes found further up the guitar neck:

There are three notes in an Am chord: the root note is an A, the perfect 5th is an E, and the minor 3rd is a C. This chord guitar lesson begins with the open A minor chord, which begins with an open A string, with the second frets of the D an G strings fretted (E and A notes, respectively) and the first fret of the B string fretted (a C note), plus an open e string:

Next, we go to the 5th fret of the E string (an A note) to learn an Am bar chord. This involves using your pinky and ring fingers to fret the 7th frets of the A and D strings and barring with your index finger along the 5th frets of the rest of the strings:

Finally, this Am guitar chord lesson finishes of with an open position octave shape barre chord beginning at the 12th fret location:

This can be a tight chord to hold in this position, and if you have big fingers they might get squished, but it does sound nice when you can play it right!