How to read a chord diagram

The grid is a fretboard, stood on end

Turn a guitar so the headstock points at the ceiling and look at it straight on: that is the picture. The six vertical lines are the strings, thickest on the left, thinnest on the right — low E, A, D, G, B, high E. The horizontal lines are the frets, the metal bars running across the neck.

The thick line across the top is the nut, where the fretboard ends and the strings run off to the tuning pegs. So the space just under that thick line is the first fret, the next one down is the second, and so on. If a chord is played further up the neck the diagram drops the nut and prints a small number beside the top fret instead, telling you which one you are looking at.

• C
• G
• D

Dots, and the numbers on them

A dot means: press this string here. Where two dots sit on the same fret you are holding two strings at once, which is where a finger has to lie flat across them — that is a barre, and it has a lesson of its own.

The number inside a dot is which finger to use: 1 is the index, 2 the middle, 3 the ring, 4 the little finger. It is a suggestion rather than a rule, but it is a good one. The fingerings printed here are the ones that leave your hand in the best position for whatever chord is likely to come next, and inventing your own tends to work for one chord and fail on the change into the following one.

Above the nut: O and X

A small circle above a string means play it open — strike it, but hold nothing down. An open string is what gives the beginner's chords their ring, and it is why C, G, D, E, A and their minors sound so much fuller than a barre chord in the same key.

A cross means do not play that string at all. On a C major the lowest string is crossed: hit it and you add a bass note the chord does not want. At speed you will not have time to think about it, so learn the chord with the mute built in — the side of a fretting finger resting against the string is usually all it takes.

The same chord, on a keyboard

Flip the instrument toggle at the top of this page and every diagram becomes a keyboard. There is no fingering to learn here and no strings to avoid: the shaded keys are the notes, and you press them together.

A keyboard diagram is the more honest picture of what a chord actually is. A major triad is three notes — a root, a note four semitones above it, and one seven semitones above the root — and on a keyboard you can see all three and count the gaps between them. On a fretboard the same three notes are scattered across six strings in an order that has more to do with how a guitar is tuned than with the chord itself.

That is also why a guitar diagram often shows more dots than the chord has notes. A six-string C major is playing the same three notes over again in different octaves. Nothing is added by the repetition except thickness, which is the whole point of a guitar.

• Am
• F
• Em

One chord, many shapes

A diagram shows a way to play a chord, not the way. There are at least five places on a fretboard to play a G major and they are all correct; the one drawn here is the one most players reach for first and the one that sounds closest to what is on the recording.

As you get further in you will start choosing between them on purpose — a shape near the nut for its open ring, one further up because your hand is already there, one that keeps a particular note on top because the melody is sitting on it. That is arranging rather than reading, and it starts the moment you stop needing the diagram.

Reading them in time

A page of diagrams tells you the shapes but not when to change. That is what the lane on a song page is for: the chords scroll past a playhead in the order and at the spacing they are actually played, the current one is drawn large, and the next one is announced with a countdown so your hand can move before you hear it.

The useful way to practise a new song is to let it play at full speed once without touching the guitar, watching only the lane, until you can feel where the changes land. Then pick the instrument up. Almost everyone who struggles with a song is struggling with the timing of the change rather than with the shape.