Guitar chords in the key of D minor

The seven chords of D minor are Dm, Edim, F, Gm, Am, Bb, C. Each one has a job in the key, and each tends towards particular chords next.

• Dm, the tonic of D minor. Usually goes to Gm or Am: the departure, carrying the flat 6th with it.
• Edim, the supertonic of D minor. Usually goes to Am: roots falling a fifth: the minor key’s ii–V.
• F, the mediant of D minor. Usually goes to Bb or C: a fourth up inside the relative major.
• Gm, the subdominant of D minor. Usually goes to Am: subdominant into dominant, the cadence the minor key borrows from major.
• Am, the dominant of D minor. Usually goes to Dm: the leading tone rises into the minor tonic.
• Bb, the submediant of D minor. Usually goes to C or Gm: the Aeolian cadence: ♭VI–♭VII–i closes the key with no dominant at all.
• C, the subtonic of D minor. Usually goes to Dm or F: 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.