Chord chart

Guitar, ukulele, mandolin, charango and piano. Every root, the chords you meet most, one way to play each. New to diagrams? Tap "How to read it". Then print the page and keep it by the stand.

Instrument

Chord names

Chords

Hand

How to read a diagram

The fretboard stands up, seen from the front. Strings run top to bottom, the lowest string on the left: E A D G B E on the guitar, G C E A on the ukulele, G D A E on the mandolin, G C E A E on the charango. Five frets are shown. On the piano, a dot marks each key that sounds; the root is the lowest.

C on the guitar. A thick top line is the nut. A dot is a finger on that fret. A circle above the nut is an open string, played. An x is a string not played.

A long rounded bar is a barre: one finger across several strings.

"4fr" at the top means the diagram starts at the fourth fret. The top line is then a fret, not the nut.

What the numbers mean

A chord stacks notes a third apart on a root. Its numbers count up the major scale of the root: 1 is the root, 3 the third, 5 the fifth. A flat sign lowers a note by a half step, one fret or the next key on the piano; a sharp raises it. A major chord is 1-3-5; a minor chord lowers the third, 1-b3-5; a diminished chord lowers the third and the fifth, 1-b3-b5; an augmented chord raises the fifth, 1-3-#5. A dominant seventh (C7) adds the flat seventh, 1-3-5-b7; a major seventh (Cmaj7) adds the seventh itself, 1-3-5-7. A suspended chord (sus4, sus2) usually moves on to the plain chord: Dsus4 to D. When an instrument cannot play every note, leave out the fifth first; the root, third and seventh carry the chord.

Chord	Formula	Also written
major	1-3-5	M
minor	1-b3-5	min, -
augmented	1-3-#5	+
diminished triad	1-b3-b5	°, o
suspended second	1-2-5
suspended fourth	1-4-5	sus
added ninth	1-3-5-9
minor added ninth	1-b3-5-9	m(add9)
fifth (power chord)	1-5	(no 3)
sixth	1-3-5-6
minor sixth	1-b3-5-6	min6, -6
sixth, added ninth	1-3-5-6-9	6/9
minor sixth, added ninth	1-b3-5-6-9	m6/9
dominant seventh	1-3-5-b7
diminished seventh	1-b3-b5-bb7	°7, o7
seventh, suspended fourth	1-4-5-b7
major seventh	1-3-5-7	M7, Δ7
minor seventh	1-b3-5-b7	min7, -7
minor, major seventh	1-b3-5-7	m(maj7), -Δ7
major seventh, flat fifth	1-3-b5-7	M7♭5, Δ7♭5
half-diminished seventh	1-b3-b5-b7	ø7, m7♭5
augmented seventh	1-3-#5-b7	+7, 7♯5
seventh, flat fifth	1-3-b5-b7	7(♭5)
seventh, flat ninth	1-3-5-b7-b9	7(♭9)
seventh, sharp ninth	1-3-5-b7-#9	7(♯9)
augmented seventh, flat ninth	1-3-#5-b7-b9
ninth	1-3-5-b7-9
major ninth	1-3-5-7-9	M9, Δ9
minor ninth	1-b3-5-b7-9	min9, -9
eleventh	1-(3)-5-b7-9-11
minor eleventh	1-b3-5-b7-9-11	min11, -11
thirteenth	1-3-5-b7-9-(11)-13

Chords over another bass note

A slash chord names a chord and its lowest note: C/E is a C chord with E in the bass. With the third in the bass the chord is in first inversion; with the fifth in the bass, second inversion; the plain chord, with its root in the bass, is in root position.

A first inversion can stand in for the plain chord and lets the bass walk by step: C, G/B, Am. A second inversion mostly leads into V at an ending, as in C/G, G, C, or passes between two chords. The bass can also be a note outside the triad, as in Am/G, where the bass keeps walking down.

C/E

C/G

G/B

G/D

D/F^#

D/A

F/A

F/C

Am/C

Am/E

Am/G

Em/B

E/G^#

Dm/F

The guitar and ukulele shapes were computed from each chord's notes and checked by a second program; the mandolin shapes were computed for this chart from the same notes and checked against them; the charango shapes were computed the same way, in the standard tuning G C E A E, and checked by a second program; the drawings are MeloFolio's own.