Guitar chords in the key of Ab minor

The seven chords of Ab minor are Abm, Bbdim, Cb, Dbm, Ebm, Fb, Gb. Each one has a job in the key, and each tends towards particular chords next.

• Abm, the tonic of Ab minor. Usually goes to Dbm or Ebm: the departure, carrying the flat 6th with it.
• Bbdim, the supertonic of Ab minor. Usually goes to Ebm: roots falling a fifth: the minor key’s ii–V.
• Cb, the mediant of Ab minor. Usually goes to Fb or Gb: a fourth up inside the relative major.
• Dbm, the subdominant of Ab minor. Usually goes to Ebm: subdominant into dominant, the cadence the minor key borrows from major.
• Ebm, the dominant of Ab minor. Usually goes to Abm: the leading tone rises into the minor tonic.
• Fb, the submediant of Ab minor. Usually goes to Gb or Dbm: the Aeolian cadence: ♭VI–♭VII–i closes the key with no dominant at all.
• Gb, the subtonic of Ab minor. Usually goes to Abm or Cb: a whole tone into the tonic, no leading tone, so it arrives rather than resolves.

Where a chord tends to go follows Walter Piston’s table of usual root progressions in Harmony (W. W. Norton); see the sources.