Chord Charts
Here are chord charts for most of the chords you’ll come across when playing guitar. First, the most common open-position chords:
And these are generic charts for making most barre chords you’ll find yourself using in songs. The “R” in the chart indicates where the root note is on the sixth or fifth string:
Finally, here are some interesting chords, as well as some different voicings of basic chords that you may enjoy playing:
Here are some of the basic chord shapes you’re likely to run into in jazz music. Notice that the root note of each chord is marked with an “R” in the appropriate finger circle.
You may have noted that many of the chords in the last example involve playing notes on just four strings. That’s some more unexpected help. Remember that there are five different notes in ninth chords, eleventh chords have six, and thirteenth chords have seven. Your guitar has only six strings, so you have to drop some notes here and there when you play any extended chord.
Plus, the more notes your chord has, the more likely the chord can perform double duty. For example, the notes of a C6 chord are C, E, G, and A. These are the same notes that make up an Am7 chord. Start with A as your root and work it out—A, C (minor third), E (fifth), and G (flatted seventh).