How to play Am7 (A m7) on Guitar

Am7 is the A m7 chord. It is built from 4 notes — A, C, E and G — which sit at the root, minor third, perfect fifth and minor seventh above the root A. Written as a formula that is 1P – 3m – 5P – 7m. Those intervals, not the note names, are what give the chord its character: move all of them to a different root and you still hear a m7 chord.

Am7 on guitar is an open shape — 3 strings ring open while 2 are fretted, the shape spans 2 frets, 1 string is muted and should not sound — damp it with the underside of a fretting finger. Open strings do a lot of the work here, which is why this shape sounds fuller than the effort it takes. Arch your fingers so each one lands on its fingertip — a finger leaning flat will deaden the open string next to it, and a single muted string is the most common reason a beginner's chord sounds wrong when the fingering is in fact correct.

The interval that defines this chord is the minor third between A and C. Lowering the third by one semitone is the entire difference between A major and A minor, and it is the reason the chord reads as darker or sadder to most listeners. The added minor seventh stops the chord from sounding like a resting place — it leans forward and wants to resolve, which is exactly why it turns up at the end of a phrase rather than the start.

Am7 belongs to 3 major keys, including C major, where it is the vi chord, G major, where it is the ii chord and F major, where it is the iii chord. That is the practical reason to learn it: a chord that is diatonic to several keys turns up constantly, and knowing which degree it occupies tells you what tends to come next. A vi chord in C major most often moves toward the tonic, so practising Am7 in the context of C will teach you more than practising it in isolation.