Em7 piano chord, E minor 7th notes and fingering.

The Em7 piano chord is E minor 7th: E, G, B and D. It is the E minor triad (E, G, B) with a minor seventh (D) added on top, ten semitones above the root. Chord charts write it as Em7 or Emin7.

How to play Em7 on piano

1. Find E on the keyboard. E is the white key just right of the pair of black keys, the last white key before F.
2. With your right hand, put finger 1 on E, finger 2 on G, finger 3 on B and finger 5 on D. Finger 1 is the thumb.
3. Press all four keys together. In root position they run from E4 to D5, a reach of 10 semitones. Play chord sounds them together and Arpeggio sounds them one by one, from the bottom up.
4. Click Left hand to see the left hand. It plays E3 to D4, one octave lower: E with finger 5, G with finger 3, B with finger 2, D with finger 1.
5. The cards under the keyboard hold the four positions, with E, G, B and D at the bottom in turn. Play and Arpeggio on a card play that position.
6. Open Note names. Every note of this chord is a white key, so the Sharps and Flats choices show the same names.

How Em7 is built

Counted from the root, the formula is 0, 3, 7, 10. Stacked on each other the gaps are 3 + 4 + 3: a minor third, a major third and another minor third. Leave out the root and the top three notes, G, B and D, make a major triad: G major. That is why Em7 and Gmaj7 look so alike on the keyboard.

Worked example: the pitch of E4. On a piano tuned to A4 = 440 Hz, a note 5 semitones below A4 has the frequency 440 × 2^(-5/12), which is about 329.63 Hz. G4 is 2 semitones below A4, so 440 × 2^(-2/12) gives about 392.00 Hz.

What the keys look like under your hand

E has a black key on its left (Eb) and none on its right, because E and F are only a semitone apart. All four notes are white keys (E, G, B and D), so the hand can stay flat and there is no reaching for a black key. The thumb (E) and little finger (D) are both on white keys here, so the hand can lie in its natural shape.

Em7 inversions and fingering

Em7 has four positions. In root position E is at the bottom. In the first inversion, G is at the bottom and the chord is written Em7/G. In the second inversion, B is at the bottom and the chord is written Em7/B. In the third inversion, D is at the bottom and the chord is written Em7/D. The tightest reach, 8 semitones from the lowest key to the highest, is the second inversion. The widest, at 10, is the root position.

The keys that hold Em7

Em7 fits six of the major and natural minor keys that have a standard key signature, which means every note of it comes from that key's scale. The simplest is C major, with no sharps or flats, where it is chord iii7.

Progressions that use Em7, with the chord numbers and the chords in that key:

• C major: Imaj7-iii7-IVmaj7-V7, which is Cmaj7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, a climb from the tonic to the dominant.
• A minor: i7-iv7-v7-i7, which is Am7, Dm7, Em7, Am7, the minor-key cadence.
• G major: Imaj7-V7-vi7-IVmaj7, which is Gmaj7, D7, Em7, Cmaj7, the four-chord loop heard in a great deal of pop.

Here is a worked example in C major. The chord before Em7 in the first progression above is Cmaj7 (C, E, G and B). From Cmaj7 in root position, the closest way to reach Em7 is its third inversion (D, E, G and B, lowest note first): three notes stay where they are, and the others move 2 semitones in total, counting each note against the note in the same place from the bottom.

The same four keys can be named a second way. Em7 holds the same notes as G6 (G, B, D and E). The name you read depends on which note is lowest: with E at the bottom it is Em7, with G at the bottom it is G6.

What Em7 sounds like

Minor 7th chords are mellow. The added seventh softens the plain minor triad, so the chord feels smoother and less heavy. You hear them in jazz, soul, R and B and pop, and as the ii chord of a ii-V-I.

Em7 is the iii7 chord in C major, the v7 chord in A minor and the vi7 chord in G major.

A common mistake with Em7

A common mistake is pressing G# instead of G, one semitone higher than the third of Em7. That gives E7 (E, G#, B and D), a dominant 7th. If the chord sounds brighter and more tense than you expected, the third is the note to check.

Chords to learn next

Chords close to Em7: E minor (the same chord without the seventh; shares E, G and B); E7 (a major third instead; shares E, B and D); Gmaj7 (shares three notes with it); G major (the major triad on top of it; shares G, B and D).

Once Em7 feels easy, play it and then A7 to hear a ii-V move. For chords beyond these six types, and for guitar and ukulele shapes, use the chord finder. To play along with your computer keys, open the virtual piano. The piano chords page lists all 72 chords.