Chords 11: G minor

G minor is the drunk person's staircase. If E minor is a beautiful, orderly staircase, G minor looks as though the bricklayer forgot to sort the bricks by size. Compared with G major, only one note is different, but because of where that note falls, the fingering changes completely: 0231. The upper string remains open because it already produces a G note, but the lengths – and therefore pitches – of the other strings have to be altered.

Its difficulty is similar to E minor: three fingers must be coordinated accurately, something like this: