Guitar Chord Assistant

A free chord dictionary and reverse chord finder โ€” every voicing checked by hand for the fingering you would actually use.

๐Ÿ“ฑ Turn your phone sideways โ€” the fretboard gets a lot easier to tap.

๐Ÿ•ต๏ธ Analysis Result

Unknown
Notes: None

How to use the Chord Finder

Your fingers are somewhere on the neck and you don't know what you're holding. Tap that shape onto the fretboard above and the Finder names it.

  1. Tap the frets you're holding. One tap per string. Tap the same dot again to clear it.
  2. Sort out the strings you aren't fretting. The O and X markers down the left side switch each string between ringing open and muted. Get these right. The same fretted notes come back as a different chord depending on which open strings you let through, and a ringing low E is the usual culprit.
  3. Read the result. You get the name, the notes actually sounding, and any other name that grip could go by. Show Notes marks where those same notes repeat elsewhere on the neck. Play sounds it back.

Nothing coming back almost always means one note in the shape belongs to no standard chord. Mute a string and try again. If you'd rather start from something that works, Example drops a shape in.

Two names for one grip isn't a bug. Six strings can't carry every note of a large chord, so what's left over often spells two things at once. Am7 and C6 are the same four notes; which one it is depends on the song around it, not the shape.

Build a Progression
Key
Mode
Chord flavour

Chords in this key
๐ŸŽผ Your progression
Start from a known progression

How to use the Progressions tab

Pick a key on the left and you get the chords that belong to it. Tap them in the order you want and they line up as a progression. If you'd rather not start from scratch, take one of the presets underneath and change it from there.

The shapes you get back aren't the ones you learned first. They're the set where your hand moves least from one chord to the next, which is why the same four chords can come back looking different depending on what surrounds them.

Watch the top note line under each chord. The highest string is the one an ear hears as the tune, so a progression whose top note shifts by a fret or two hangs together. One that jumps around sounds like four unrelated chords played in a row, even when the chords are right.

Turn Open chords off to keep everything up the neck in one position. Worth doing when a capo has already taken your open strings, or when a bass player is covering the low end and your open strings are just mud.

Getting past plain triads

Three-note chords are where a key starts. Chord flavour restacks every degree at once: sevenths for jazz and soul, add9 when you want something open, sixths when a seventh sounds too much like an ending, sus to sit between major and minor.

Degrees don't all take the same flavour, so it adapts. Ask for sevenths in a major key and the V comes back a dominant seventh while the I and IV come back major sevenths. That gap is the whole reason the V pulls home. Where a flavour would drag in a note from outside the key, that one chord stays a triad.

Tap a single chord in the strip to change just that one. Songs rarely keep one flavour the whole way through, and one m7 in a row of triads is often the entire idea.

Select a Chord
Root Note
Chord Quality
๐Ÿ“– Browse every chord as a page โ†’
๐Ÿชต Voicings (O) = optional string

How to use the Chord Dictionary

Pick a root on the left, then a quality. You get every shape for that chord that's worth playing, ordered from the nut upward. Each dot carries the finger you press it with. X over a string means mute it, O means let it ring.

Where the sensible grip is thumb over the top of the neck, the dot says T. Diagrams that instead put your index finger on two different frets at once are the reason some shapes feel impossible to hold. There aren't any of those here.

Common chords have a handful of shapes and you'll see them all. Something like maj7add11 can have twenty-odd, so a few representatives are shown first and All opens the rest.

Shapes that leave a note out

Large chords don't fit. A 13th has seven notes, you have six strings, and one of them is often muted by the thumb. So the shapes that drop a note are labelled with the one they drop — 5th omitted, for instance — instead of being quietly passed off as complete.

A shape is only filed under a chord when the notes still ringing spell that chord and nothing simpler. Take the 5th out of a 6/9 and what's left is a 7sus2 a whole step up. That's a different chord, so those shapes aren't in here at all, under either name.

Slash chords

Chords with a bass note other than the root have their own section above the voicings. They're what makes a progression walk down by step rather than jump, and they're only listed where the alternate bass actually changes something.

Underneath the shapes you'll find which keys the chord belongs to and which progressions use it, with links straight into the Progressions tab. The whole dictionary also exists as plain pages grouped by root and family if you'd rather read than tap.

โœ๏ธ Tips

1. How to Read the Fretboard Diagrams

Learn what the O's, X's, finger numbers, and connecting bars on our fretboard diagrams actually mean before you touch a string.

Read More โ†’

2. Barre Chords: Why They're Hard (and How to Fix Them)

Barre chords buzz or mute out for almost everyone at first โ€” here's exactly why, and how to fix it.

Read More โ†’

3. Chord Symbols Cheat Sheet

m, 7, maj7, sus4, dim, aug, add9... a quick reference for what every chord suffix actually changes.

Read More โ†’

4. Slash Chords Explained

What C/E or Am/G actually means, and why some slash chords are inversions while others aren't.

Read More โ†’

5. Essential Chord Progressions to Practice

Four progressions โ€” from blues to jazz โ€” that show up in more songs than almost anything else.

Read More โ†’

6. Getting the Most Out of the Chord Finder

Click frets, get an instant chord ID. Here's how to get the most out of the Chord Finder tool.

Read More โ†’

7. Capo Basics: How and Why to Use One

A capo lets you keep the shapes you know while changing the key entirely โ€” here's how the math works.

Read More โ†’

8. Open, Barre, and Power Chords โ€” When to Use Each

Open, barre, or power chord โ€” the right choice depends on genre and texture, not just difficulty.

Read More โ†’

9. How to Transpose a Song to Any Key

Two reliable ways to move any song into a new key, plus the shortcut everyone forgets.

Read More โ†’

10. Diatonic Chords: Building Progressions from a Scale

Every major scale hides seven chords inside it โ€” here's the pattern behind progressions that always sound right.

Read More โ†’

11. Strumming Patterns Every Beginner Should Know

The single most useful strumming pattern to learn first, plus how to keep your arm moving through the rests.

Read More โ†’

12. Major vs. Minor: Why Chords Sound Happy or Sad

One semitone is the entire difference between a chord sounding happy or sad. Here's why.

Read More โ†’

13. Voice Leading: Making Chord Changes Sound Smoother

Smooth chord changes aren't about speed โ€” they're about choosing voicings whose notes barely have to move.

Read More โ†’

14. Extended Chords in Pop & R&B: 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths

9ths, 11ths, and 13ths add the lush color you hear in R&B and neo-soul โ€” here's what they actually are.

Read More โ†’

15. Practice Drills for Fast, Clean Chord Changes

Four focused drills to fix sloppy chord changes faster than just playing through songs.

Read More โ†’