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Guitar chord finder
Pick a root and chord type to see playable shapes, easiest first — or switch tabs and tap the frets you hold to find out which chord it is.
C
major| Notes | C | E | G |
|---|---|---|---|
| Formula | 1 | 3 | 5 |
Numbers in the dots are fingers: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 little. A bar means one finger presses several strings. × = don’t play the string, ○ = play it open.
Works in your browser. No account needed.
Frequently asked questions
How are the chord shapes found?
They are calculated rather than copied from a fixed list. For the chosen chord and tuning, the finder tries every combination of open, muted and fretted strings within a four-fret span up to the 15th fret. It keeps a shape only if every note belongs to the chord, every essential note is present, the root is the lowest note, muted strings are at the edges (at most one in the middle) and four fingers can hold it, using a barre where needed. In standard tuning the classic open and barre shapes, checked by hand, are listed first.
How are shapes ranked from easy to hard?
Each shape gets a difficulty score: every finger used adds to it, and so do a barre, a stretch across four frets, muted strings (especially one in the middle), playing high up the neck and leaving out the fifth. Open strings in the first few frets make a shape easier, and using more strings is slightly preferred because the chord sounds fuller. The labels Easy, Moderate and Harder come from that score.
Why is the fifth sometimes missing?
In seventh, sixth and ninth chords the perfect fifth adds little to the chord's character, so guitarists often drop it to keep a shape playable — a C9 needs five different notes, and leaving out G makes room for the others. Shapes without the fifth say so under the diagram. Only the perfect fifth is ever left out; the root and the notes that give the chord its name are always there.
What do inversions and slash chords mean?
A chord is in root position when its root is the lowest note. When another chord tone is lowest it is an inversion: the third in the bass is the 1st inversion, the fifth the 2nd, the seventh the 3rd. It is written with a slash, so C/E is a C chord with E in the bass. When the bass note is a 9th rather than a tone of the basic chord, the result is simply called a slash chord.
Why can one shape have several names?
Some groups of notes really are more than one chord. C E G A is C6 or Am7, depending on which note you treat as the root, and a diminished seventh chord repeats every three frets, so it takes its name from whichever note is in the bass. The finder lists the likeliest name first — preferring the name whose root is the lowest note and the simpler chord type — and shows the alternatives underneath.
Are the note names spelled correctly?
Yes. Notes are spelled from the chord, not just from the key you press: F major is F A C, D♭ major is D♭ F A♭ and C♯ minor is C♯ E G♯, and a black-key root takes whichever name keeps the chord readable — so you will see F♯ and D♭ major but C♯ and G♯ minor. The note names under each diagram use the same spelling.
About this tool
This guitar chord finder works in both directions. Starting from a name, it shows up to 24 ways to play the chord, each as a standard chord box with finger numbers, barres, muted and open strings, the note each string sounds and a text version such as x32010 that you can copy into a song sheet. Starting from your hand, it tells you what you are playing: tap the frets, and it names the chord, points out an inversion or slash bass, and shows the degree — root, third, fifth, seventh — of every string.
It covers every root with major, minor, 7, maj7, m7, sus2, sus4, dim, aug, add9, 6, 9, m7♭5, dim7, m6, 7sus4 and power chords. When naming a shape it also recognises maj9, m9, madd9, minor-major 7th and altered sevenths. Chord spellings follow music-theory rules, so each chord stacks every other letter name — the third of E major is G♯, not A♭ — and the formula row shows which interval every note is.
The shapes are generated for the tuning you pick, which is especially useful in DADGAD and Open G, where the usual chord charts do not apply. In Open G, for example, the five highest strings played open already make a G chord, so the finder lists x00000 first — the low D string is muted to keep the root as the lowest note. A capo does not change the shapes: put the capo on, play the shape shown, and the chord will sound that many semitones higher.
Press Strum or Arpeggio under any diagram to hear it. The sound is a plucked-string synthesis generated in your browser, so there are no sound files to download and nothing you enter leaves your device.