Chord Diagram Maker

A chord diagram is a small picture of the neck of a guitar that shows where the fingers go. Songbooks use them, teachers draw them on handouts, and beginners learn from them. This page makes them for any progression you type, for guitar, ukulele or bass, puts them on a sheet that can be printed or saved, and also lets you draw a shape and have it named.

Typing a progression

Enter chord names separated by spaces, for example C G Am F. The page understands major and minor chords, sevenths (7, maj7, m7), suspended chords (sus2, sus4), diminished, augmented and half-diminished chords (dim, aug, m7b5, dim7), sixths (6, m6), add9, and power chords written as 5. A slash chord such as C/E puts E in the bass. A name that cannot be read is shown as not recognised, and one with no easy shape says so.

How the shapes are found

The tool does not look up a fixed table. For each chord it works out the notes it needs, then tries every combination of frets within a span of four frets on the instrument’s strings. A fingering is kept if it contains every note of the chord, has the root as the lowest note on guitar and bass, and needs no more than four fingers. The easiest shapes are listed first, with open chords before barre chords. On a ukulele, where the strings are re-entrant, the lowest-note rule is not applied.

A worked example

Press Sample for C G Am F on guitar. The first shapes are C as x32010, G as 320003, Am as x02210 and F as 133211. The numbers are the frets from the lowest string, and x means the string is not played. F needs a barre across all six strings at the first fret, so it is the hardest of the four. Press Another shape under a chord to see the next one in the list, with a counter like 1/3 showing how many were found.

Reading a diagram

The strings run vertically with the lowest on the left, and the frets run across. A dot is a finger, a circle above the nut an open string, and a cross a muted one. A shape played higher up the neck is drawn with the fret it starts from. Because the easiest shapes come first, beginners meet open chords before barre chords.

Drawing your own

Under Draw your own, click a point on the fretboard to place a finger; click again to remove it, and click at the open-string area to mute or play a string open. The page shows the frets from the low string to the high one and gives the name of the chord those notes form, up to three possibilities, or says there is no standard name. It is a quick way to name a shape you found by ear.

Printing

Download sheet (SVG) saves the diagrams as a vector image that can be dropped into a document. Print produces a clean page without the buttons. Diagrams are drawn in the browser, and nothing is uploaded.

Limits

Only standard tuning for each instrument is used. A chord written in a different way, such as a jazz extension with many alterations, may not be recognised. The ranking is a guide, not a teacher: players with small hands, or other preferences, may choose another shape.

Related tools

• Ukulele Chord Finder lists the chords of a key for the ukulele.
• Chord Transposer changes the key of a whole chord sheet.
• Guitar Tab Maker writes the notes of a tune as tablature.
• Circle of Fifths shows which chords belong together.