Guitar chords are groups of notes that work in unison to produce harmony when played together, using similar intervals as scales.
Beginners typically begin learning guitar chords using tertian triads, which combine third intervals. As their skills increase, intermediate guitarists add dominant seventh chords and begin creating quartal and quintal harmony structures by stacking intervals on top of one another.
Basics
Chord progressions form the cornerstone of many songs. While they can range in complexity, all chord progressions should have an audible sound that complements the key of your song and use finger positioning that matches up perfectly on frets to achieve this sound.
Typically, black circles in a chord chart represent which strings and frets need to be played with your fingers, whereas an “X” symbol on top of certain strings means they should be muted or “muted”.
Keep in mind that your fingertips should always be used from their tips rather than pads; this way, each note will sound its best. Also, try playing each string/note individually prior to creating chords; this will enable you to detect if a finger is out of position or pressing strings that shouldn’t be pressed so as to prevent errors and build better muscle memory of finger position.
Intermediate
Guitar chords are strings of notes which, when played simultaneously, form melodic arrangements to produce harmony when played as one unit. This distinguishes them from woodwind and brass instruments which only allow single notes at a time to be played at any one time.
Chords serve as the cornerstone of rhythm, featuring down- and up-strokes with pauses in between that emphasize certain strokes. To make chords sound musically satisfying it’s key to develop strumming patterns.
Intermediate players will find this application an invaluable aid in developing an in-depth knowledge of chord structures. Simply by selecting a root and type, a list of chords are generated; selecting “More” will show additional chords with different voicings or fret positions.
Starting off on these chords will help build muscle memory and teach how to switch between them, plus they fit nicely in G Major making them ideal for newcomers.
Advanced
Woodwinds and brass instruments typically only play one note at a time; unlike guitar, which allows multiple combinations of notes to form chords. Chords are composed of 3 or more notes which sound the same when played together and comprise most songs. Major and minor chords are the two primary types; major chords tend to sound joyful while minor ones can sound sad or neutral.
Our advanced online guitar chords tool makes exploring the fretboard easy. Simply choose a root and type and our chord finder will present various voicings and inversions of that shape on the fretboard; additionally, there is also a colour coded chord tone map below the virtual fretboard that shows you its theoretical structure.
To select a string, click on its green circle to highlight its fretboard location. A horizontal green line indicates you will be playing a barre chord, blank circles denote open chords and yellow lines represent power chords (two or more fingers on each string). To change tuning click the settings icon located at the top left corner.
Free
There is free guitar chord software online which you can use to generate guitar chords. One such website, Chord-C, makes this process straightforward by simply providing root note and chord type options on the left; once this has been selected it will produce fret images of generated guitar chords which also show various positions where you can play these chords on a fretboard.
Chordie is another free software you can use to generate guitar chords, built from an online community of guitarists and offering search functionality so you can quickly locate songs by lyrics so as to find their chords more easily.
This app boasts many of the features one would expect from a premium tool, including being able to transpose chords, loop difficult sections for practice purposes and download MIDI files for audio editing. Plus it boasts an intuitive user interface for easier use.