How to use the chord Finder

Select the root note of your chord. Then select the type of chord you want. Clicking the arrows below the chord selector will move through the chords along the length of the fretboard started from open chords to moveable ones.

The chord finder contains the most common chords found in most popular songs and tunes. I haven't included every chord fingering, only the ones that don't involve too much digit stretching!

Over time I will be adding more to include chords with less common more jazz extensions such as 7sus4, 6/9, #5#9 etc.

It is important to note that where a chord has 5 notes or more ie Maj9 I have often omitted the 5th note in the chord as this doesn't change the basic character of the chord. This is common place when playing guitar chords.

Sometimes you will see chords with the 3 or the 7th removed on the internet; I have always kept them in as removing them creates a completely different chord. For example in Cmin9 the notes are C, Eb, G, Bb, D. If you take away the b3 which is the Eb you finish with C, D, G, Bb which is a C9 and so has a dominant sound and not a minor sound.

How are chords constructed?

When I see explainations for this subject I can see that they get very complicated quite quickly especially if one wants to include all of the theory. I am going to simplify things about by laying out the info in a very step by step way. It is worth learning a bit about this subject because it will help you with making your own chord shapes and give you more confidence musically.

Please note that I will only cover the most basic chords here just for the moment.

Lets start with C Major chord.

The C Major chord is made up from the C major scale shown on the 2nd string below.
Notice the pattern of the steps between the notes on the frets. Between C and D there is a whole note step or two frets between them. There are two frets between D and E or 1 whole step. Between E and F there is only 1 fret or a half step. And so on. This shown in the picuture below.

This pattern is the same for all major scales. So if you want to know the notes in say Bb Major scale you can find Bb on any string and counting the steps will give you the notes in the Bb major scale.

To create the C Major chord you take the root note C and assign ot the number 1 - it is the first note in the chord. The next note is the third note in the scale which is E. This has the number 3. The next note is G and this is the 5th note of the scale. And there you have it. CMaj = C,E,G.

As with the scale you can work out any major chord this way.

All chords are basically constructed in a similar fashion and once you know the rules you can easily work out all chords from the simple to the complex.

What about a minor chord?

Using the major scale as a reference point a basic minor chord has it's third note, in the case of Cmin that is E, flattened by half a step or one fret. So Cmin has the notes C, Eb,G.

What about the Maj7 chord?

Well as you can see from the pic below and using the major scale as a reference to create the maj7 chord you just need to add the seventh note in the scale so Cmaj7 is C,E,G,B

All maj7 chords can be worked out in this way.

The Cmin7 chord is created by flattening the 7th note ( or move it back one fret ) as well as the 3rd note. So Cmin7 is C, Eb, G, Bb.

What about the dominant chord C7?

The dominant chord is someway between the two. Relating it to the C major scale it has a flattened 3rd note but the seventh note stays as it is. So the notes in C7 are C, Eb, G, B.