Originally Posted by: faith83Also, I have similar struggles with Dm. That sinking feeling when it comes up

[br]Digressing, but with value in of doing so within this thread here and now without detracting from it now you have mentioned mentioned struggles with Dm.

A couple of things worthy of mention in forming re Dm first form I've discovered in my own journey you might find helpful Faith?

Technically in itself, the chord isn't extraordinarily difficult to form, sound reasonably cleanly and ring out as taught conventionally using traditional fingering 1, 2 & 3, or shouldn't be.

Where it can become quite challenging IME, is in changing to and/or from when Dm occurs within the chord progression, especially Allegro or faster tempo, notably where there is an all finger change. e.g. Even at a modest 100BPM in learning "Kiss Me" some time ago, whilst I had/have no problem forming Dm per se (either fingering of the same voicing, more on that in a moment), and I found the recurring change to [u]from[/u] Dm to G first form easy/pretty much a no brainer, whereas the tighter spaced F [u]to[/u] Dm at the end of the verse moving into to the chorus was a much trickier shift to accomplish comfortably [u]at tempo[/u] with consistent accuracy and speed for me. Similiarly, the changes back to Dm at the end of the next two bars of the chorus, notably from Am7 to Dm, C7 to Dm. The solution of course is as always, analyse, note the minutiae in the form/ing and change/movement, then persistance in repetition, correcting until consistent and eventually, rote.

For smaller hands, shorter fingers (ergo span) I personally discovered and think that forming Dm i[u]deally[/u] with finger #3 closely adjacent the fret it should be isn't a comfortable or natural stretch. Which leads to;

An [u]alternative fingering[/u] of the same voicing as suggested by Justin of Justin Guitar here in a very recent (2020) video than his original Beginners' (BC-123) Dm teaching video from 2009. Not only does using it with the 4th (substituted for the 3rd finger) landing immediately adjacent the fret as it should be sound better and require [u]less pressure[/u] (which is always faster), but is often easier, and faster or at least as fast as the traditional fingering in the change. Worth a watch, for your consideration.

Now it may not work for everyone nor might the fortunately ecto fingered find it necessary. However in much the same vein as Justin's alternative fingering of A first form on the premise of an anchor finger between A-D-A-E-A being more pragmatically facilitative, his fingering of 1, 2 & 4 for Dm not only makes sense, but I also find it faster and more facilitative for the length of my fingers, shape of my tips and size of my hands much of the time too. That said, I use both fingerings of the same first form voicing forms of Dm and A alternatively at times generally as suits the preceding and/or following chord fingering and facilitates finger placement/movement just as I use alternate fingerings of G, and for F with and without a C in the bass (F/C).

I do the same with A in many songs alternating between the three most common fingerings of first form voicing of A.

For your consideration. I suspect like me you'll find all pragmatically useful variations as your chord 'vocab' and dexterity expands.