Guitar Chord Chart
22 chord shapes with fingering diagrams and playback.
Tap any chord to hear it strummed.
Guitar chord chart — open chords and beyond
Twenty-two shapes in standard EADGBE tuning: the open major and minor chords, the dominant sevenths used in blues and folk, the two common barre chords, and the suspended variations. Each diagram shows the top four frets of the neck with the sixth string on the left. Tap a chord and it is arpeggiated one string at a time so you can check your own fretting against it.
The pitch of every string in the playback is derived from the fretted note itself: open string plus the fret number in semitones, converted to Hz with the standard equal-temperament formula. Tune up first with the guitar tuner, then practise the changes against the metronome.
Practising chord changes
Set the metronome slow enough that you can land the next shape on the downbeat every time, and change chord every two bars rather than every bar at first. The limiting factor is almost never finger speed; it is how early you release the old shape.
Frequently asked questions
What do the numbers in the diagrams mean?
The number inside a dot is the suggested fretting finger: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 little finger. A circle above the nut means play that string open, and a cross means do not play it at all.
Which chords should a beginner learn first?
Em, Am, C, G and D between them cover a large share of popular songs and need no barre. Add E and A next, then tackle F and Bm once your hand is stronger, since both need a barre.
What does sus2 or sus4 mean?
Suspended chords replace the third of the chord with the second or the fourth, which removes the major or minor quality and leaves the chord sounding unresolved. They are usually played as a decoration on the way back to the plain major shape.