Guitar chords in the key of F minor

The seven chords of F minor are Fm, Gdim, Ab, Bbm, Cm, Db, Eb. Each one has a job in the key, and each tends towards particular chords next.

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