Guitar chord

In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. It can be composed of notes played on adjacent or separate strings or all the strings together. Chord voicings designed for the guitar can be optimized for many different purposes and playing styles.

The guitar is generally very capable and versatile for chording purposes, but it does exhibit some differences from other instruments. For a six string guitar in the very largest chord-voicings it may be necessary to drop or omit one or more tones from the chord; this is typically the root or fifth. The layout of notes on the fretboard sometimes demands that the notes in a chord will not run in tonal order. It can make a possible chord which is composed of more than one note of exactly the same pitch. Many chords can be played with the same notes in more than one place on the fretboard.

Guitars can vary both in the number of strings and in tuning. Most guitars used in popular music have six strings and are tuned (from the lowest pitched string to the highest): E-A-D-G-B-E. The internal intervals present among adjacent strings in this tuning can be written 5-5-5-4-5 (with perfect fourth intervals except for one major third interval between the G and the B). Conventionally, the string with the highest pitch (the thinnest) is called the first string, and the string having the lowest pitch is called the sixth.

Six-string guitars with standard tuning

Guitar chords take advantage of the intervals between the strings, which in each case are perfect fourths excepting the interval between the B (second) and G (third) strings, which is a major third. One common non-standard tuning, found in hard rock and heavy metal music, is called drop-D tuning. This requires the player to change the low E string tuning to that of a D note. This tuning allows power chords (see below) to be played relatively easily on the bottom three strings, as the strings are now tuned to a root-fifth-octave (D-A-D) tuning. Many other forms of guitar tunings exist as well.

On examination, it becomes clear that these two chords are logical extensions of the A major and E major chords above. The B major chord is the same shape as the A major chord but it is located two frets further up the fretboard. The F major chord is the same shape as E major but it is located one fret further up the fretboard. In effect, barre chords act as if the whole guitar has been shortened, like a moveable nut or capo.

Barre chords in the shape of A and E major can be played anywhere on the fretboard. Wherever they are played, these chords are major because they have the same shape, and this determines the intervals between the notes. The root of the chord in any position can be worked out from the diagrams above.

[edit]C major, G major and D major shapes

The other three shapes in the CAGED system are C major, G major and D major. These can be transformed into barre chords in a similar way to the A major and E major shapes.

The CAGED system therefore creates five major barre chords which can be used to play all the major chords in more than one position on the fretbo.

Other CAGED chords

The CAGED system can be modified to produce many other chords, only some of which can be covered here.

These require the basic shape of the chord to be modified so that it has slightly different intervals between each note. Once this is done, the shape can be played anywhere on the fretboard, as above.

Minor, Augmented and Diminished

Minor chords (commonly notated as C-, Cm, Cmi or Cmin) are the same as major chords except that they have a minor third instead of a major third. This is a difference of one semitone.

To create F minor from the F major chord (in E major shape), the second finger should be lifted so that the third string plays onto the barre. Compare the F major to F minor: