Transpose Guitar Chords

It's really easy to learn how to transpose guitar chords. It's all shown in the chart below. And you need only a tiny little theoretical background knowledge to understand it.

What are chords?

They are three or more notes played together. But if you'd like to transpose chords, you probably already know that. But if you wish to learn more about chords and how to make them, visit the learning chords page.

Why do we transpose guitar chords?

Most songs are written in a certain key. However, you might find that you would like to play the song in a higher or lower key because you or your singer is more comfortable with performing in that key. That's when you need to transpose guitar chords. You have to decide which key suits you best then change all the chords in that song to the chords that are their equivalents in your new key.

How do you interpret the chart below?

All major scales contain seven chords. They are in a specific order. Each of the chords therefore gets a number (or roman number) that shows how far it is from the first chord (the first chord is the chord that has the same name as the key, e.g. in the key of G the first chord is G). If the chord is a minor chord, we use a small roman number.

Sometimes we use regular numbers in chord chart. In that case, you know it's a minor chord if you see a dash "-" after it, e.g. "6-".

The seventh chord in each scale is not a minor or a major chord but a so-called diminished chord. It's not often used in popular music, however, because it has a weird, dissonant sound.

If you look at the chart below, you'll see that in the first cell, there is "I Major". It means that the chord below this heading is the first chord of this scale. In the next column, there is "II Minor". It's the second chord in that scale and it's always minor. Then comes the third degree, which is also always minor. And so on.

Example:


I have a song in the key of C major. I would like transpose the guitar chords into the key of F major.

The original song contains the chords C, F, G, C. If you look at "C" and the other chords (horizontally) under the "I Major" heading, you'll see which chords belong to that key. You'll also see that the chords you need to transpose have the following numbers: I - C, IV - F, V - G and I - C.

Now to find the F major scale, look for "F" under the "I Major" heading. There you'll see all the chords that belong to that scale: F, G, A, B♭, C, D and E. Now we know, that in your song you'll need the first, fourth, fifth and first chords in the scale. In the key of F, they will be: I - F, IV - B♭, V - C and I - F. And now your song is transposed.

Note: All of the chords in the example above are major. But if there is a II, III or VI chord in your song, those will be minor and the VII will be diminished.

More on Guitar Chords