Free Guitar Chord Charts

In these free guitar chord charts you will find the most common chords. If you learn these, you'll be able to play about 90% of the famous pop and rock songs out there. And the more successful songs you learn to play, the better songwriter you become. That was one of the Beatles's secrets. They learned to play hundreds of songs (written by other artists). The band had to perform some of these every night so they not only had a "chance" to practice these but also added their own flavor to make the job even more interesting. Learning to play songs written by others is a never-ending process, just like any other kind of serious learning. And it's so worth it!

In these free guitar chord charts below you'll find the most common chords. However, if you've just started to learn how to play the guitar, it's best to master some of the simpler chords first. There are some beginners' guitar chords that you should learn first.

If you're an absolute beginner, you'll need to learn how to read and play guitar chords. Fortunately, it is a very easy thing to learn, so you'll be able to read and play any chord in no time.

If you like playing rock & roll, you might need a guitar power chords chart. What are power chords? They are key elements of many styles of rock music. They are usually played on electric guitar, most often through an amplification process that imparts distortion. They sound so cool!

Sometimes you have the chords to a song but the key they are in is too high or too low to sing in. In that case, you might want to find out how to transpose guitar chords. Luckily, it's quick and easy to do.

Free Guitar Chord Charts

A-Chords: Ab, G#m, Ab6, Ab9, G#m6, G#m7, Abmaj7, Absus, A, Am, A6, A9, Am6, am7, Amaj7, Asus

B-Chords: Bb, Bbm, Bb6, Bb7, Bb9, Bbm6, Bbm7, B, Bm, B6, B9, Bm6, Bm7, Bmaj7

C-Chords: C, Cm, C6, C9, Cm6, Cm7, Cmaj7, Cdim

D-Chords: Db, C#m, Db6, Db9, C#m7, Dbmaj7, Dbsus, D, Dm, D6, D9, Dm6, Dm7, Dmaj7, Dsus

E-Chords: Eb, Ebm, Eb7, Eb9, Ebm6, Ebm7, Ebmaj7, Ebsus, E, Em, E6, E9, Em6, Em7, Emaj7, Edim

F-Chords: F, Fm, F6, Fm6, Fm7, Fmaj7, Fdim, F#, F#m, Gb6, F#9, F#m6, F#m7, Gbmaj7, Gbsus

G-Chords: G, Gm, G6, G9, Gm6, Gm7, Gmaj7, Gsus

I hope this piece of music theory helped you. If you'd like to learn music theory thoroughly and master it like a music major graduate (but for much less money and in much less time of course…), I recommend Getting It Down Cold Music Theory Course. If you are familiar with music theory, you improve everything you do with music!

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Guitar Chords for Beginners

There are some guitar chords for beginners that are easy to learn and master. These are the chords that you should start practicing as soon as you can put your hands on a guitar. If you can play these basic chords, you'll be able to play many songs right away.

Examples for basic, well-known songs you'll be able to play:

✓ Ode to Joy, Jingle Bells (using C and G7 only)
✓ When The Saints Go Marchin' In (using G, D7, C, D)
✓ America The Beautiful (G, D7, E7, A7, D, Am, C)
✓ Home On The Range (C, F, G7, G, Am, D7, Fm)

There will be two types of guitar chords for beginners below:

• Basic open chords: open chords are the kind of chords that are not fingered or fretted. They are the opposite of a barre chord.

• Barre chords: barre chords are chords for which you use one or more fingers to press two or more strings on the fretboard. In some cases you might encounter the expression "movable chords". They are just another name for barre chords. They are sometimes called movable because it's easy to move your hand up and down the guitar neck in only one movement.

Basic Open Chords

Open A Chords

Open B Chord

Open C Chords

Open D Chords

Open E Chords

Open G Chords

Barre Chords on the 5th String

Barre Chords on the 6th String

I borrowed the images of the chords from the Learn and Master Guitar lesson book. It's an awesome DVD/CD/lesson book course that has helped many beginners and more advanced players become really good. The way the instructor, Steve Krenz explains theory and practice is clear and easy to understand. Since I'm a pianist, I haven't tried the guitar course but I've heard it's amazing. But I can easily believe it because I have the Learn and Master Piano course and it has done wonders for my piano playing. It's also great for beginners or more experienced players who would like to deepen their knowledge with the help of a Grammy winner pianist, Will Barrow.

When you are ready to move beyond basic chord shapes into more sophisticated harmony (drop2 and drop3 chords) check out these guitar chord charts at www.guitar-theory-in-depth.com




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How To Play Guitar Chords

Learning how to play guitar chords is easy. You just need to know how to interpret chord blocks. If you do that, you can play any chord you want on your precious instrument. You'll find them in sheet music above the stuff.

Chords blocks look like diagrams and they show you how a chord is played. If your learn to read guitar chord blocks, you'll immediately know which frets are to be played by which fingers and which strings you'll need to play.

This is what chord blocks/diagrams in sheet music usually look like:

So here is how to play guitar chords reading chord diagrams:

• Chord blocks always contain 5 horizontal and 6 vertical lines.

• The thickest horizontal line at the top represents the "nut". It's the thickest horizontal line on the neck of your guitar at the top. It's made of some kind of medium-hard material.

• The horizontal lines represent the frets. They are metal strips that are fixed into the fingerboard. What string you press will decide what pitch you play.

• We already know that the first, thickest horizontal line represents the nut. The next line represents the first fret, the next one the second and so on.

• The six vertical lines stand for the strings/notes. They are not in the same order as on the piano. Their order from left to right is always: E, A, D, G, B, E.

• The chord name is always above the chord block. Therefore if you've already learned how to play a chord, you might not need to "read" the chord block. If you'd like to read it, however, it's easy to do, fortunately. (On HitJerker-Songwriting.com you'll also find a great chord chart and information on how to learn thousands chords literally in minutes.)

• There can be two types of symbols under the chord name and above the chord block. If there is an "X" above a note, it means that you shouldn't play that string. If there is an open circle above a string, it means, that you should "play this string open".

• We can talk about open strings when you don't press any of the frets when playing the guitar. Also, if (in the chord diagram) there is a circle that's filled, it means that you have to play the note on that specific string and fret shown in the diagram.

• So the last thing to know about reading chord blocks is what the numbers in circles mean on the vertical lines. First you must consider in which fret it is on then on which string. In the image above, for example, there is the number 1 in a circle on the right. It means that you have to put your 1st finger on the 2nd string at the 1st fret. Oh yes, and there is sometimes a note with a diamond in the chord diagrams and it means the root of the chord and the note that you will start from to move the chord into different keys.


I sincerely hope this explanation of how to play guitar chords was clear enough. If not, I guess if you just look at the image above it'll be easy to understand. I borrowed the chord block explanation image above from the Learn and Master Guitar lesson book. There is even more information on how to play guitar chords in it. However, I'm not a guitar player rather a pianist so I haven't tried this course of theirs but I've heard it's amazing. But I have the Learn and Master Piano course and I love it! Courses by this company always come with DVD instruction by someone who's really one of the best at what they do. They also include a lesson book, workshop book, audio CD's to practice with, etc. These courses are great for beginners and more advanced players alike. I know I've learned a lot from them!




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Guitar Power Chords Chart

This guitar power chords chart includes the most important power chords you need to know if you'd like to play rock and roll or heavy metal music.

But what are power chords?

They are very important parts of most styles of rock and heavy metal music. Usually electric guitarists use them. They are usually made by amplifying the sound and this way also distorting it.

They are quite easy to learn for beginners because they are not really chords from a theoretical point of view. They are simpler. Chords consist of at least 3 notes but power chords use only the root and the 5th steps of the major scale (a perfect 5th). That's why in guitar power chords charts, they are abbreviated as the root and the number 5, like E5, A5, etc.

In other words, these chords don't contain the 3rd (i.e. the note from which we could find out if it's a major chord or a minor chord). So we don't know if a power chord is major or minor. So you can consider them to be either.

Guitar players usually use only one octave when performing power chords. It just sounds better and stronger that way. However, some of them like giving it more "depth" and do octave doubling.Rock and heavy metal guitarists normally play power chords in the middle register because they sound noisier and heavier there. And because if power chords are played in a rather low or high register, they sound a little uncertain and shallow. Power chords are easy to play basically anywhere on the neck of your guitar but they don't contribute much to the harmonic texture of songs.

Power chords are usually played using two strings. Normally, you use the index finger and the ring finger to play a power chord. Your index finger presses on the root note and the ring finger on the 5th.

A lot of people consider power chords to be amateurish, too easy and artistic. But in my opinion, whatever sounds good is good and often the most amazing songs are the simplest and easiest to play!

So here is the Chart:

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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.

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