Beginning to understand chord charts and diagrams can be intimidating at first, as all those lines, dots, X’s and O’s represent different meanings. But stick with it – there is nothing scary or mysterious here – just practical information you’re after!
Establishing good technique early is key to successful playing. Doing so will facilitate correct finger placement and will prevent bad habits when switching chords later.
Strings
A chord chart contains all possible fingerings of a given chord. Sometimes this includes an alternative version where one note in the chord has been flattened – this can help you practice and test your knowledge of fretboard notes.
Chords on a guitar typically follow triads, or three note chords, making learning them easier for beginners than other types such as 7th or 9th chords that have more notes.
When learning a new chord, focus solely on its natural notes without sharps or flats for maximum ease in remembering which strings belong to which strings on your fretboard. If an “X” or an “O” appears on your fretboard this indicates you should mute or finger that string rather than mutes it openly.
Frets
Horizontal lines on a guitar chords chart symbolize frets. The first line on this chart represents the nut of the guitar while each subsequent one indicates one metal bar along its neck. When you see dots on specific strings on this chart, they indicate which finger should press that fret; for example a dot on string 3 indicates index finger should press it.
Some chords require you to hold down multiple strings simultaneously – this is known as a barre chord and will be marked on a chords chart as “X” or “O”, with “X” meaning you should mute that string and “O” open it up.
On a chords chart, you may also come across “T”, which indicates using your thumb to fret that string for advanced bar chords.
Tabs
When you see a chart with either an “X” or an “O” next to a thick black line representing your guitar neck, this indicates which strings should either be played open or muted. Most often this chart will contain numbers which correspond with each fret (1 through 4) on your instrument neck.
You may come across diagrams that display multiple chords arranged in rows with their names above the strings; these are known as chord diagrams and provide you with both information about how to play each chord as well as its name and name of a given chord.
Chord charts can be extremely helpful when learning basic songs & progressions without much musical background to draw upon. Once you have enough musical experience to do so, try going beyond only using chord charts – that way, you can gain a greater insight into how chords function & make modifications that create new variations of them.
Text
A chord chart on a guitar typically displays vertically, with lines representing strings and fret bars. The top line represents the first string while the bottom represents sixth; spaces between chords indicate which finger to use to produce each note; this diagram is often called fretboard diagram.
On a fretboard diagram, chord symbols may include minor, major and flat. There may also be other variations such as bass or g, though these variations aren’t necessary to learn chords faster. These visual cues provide visual clues as to which fingers to use when learning new chords.
Chord charts may contain additional text to specify which strings and frets should be played with the left hand, or to indicate when a string should be muted – this can be especially helpful for beginners. You can select formatting options to format the chart while editing; further information about formatting codes can be found in our Codes article.