Gaug guitar chord
Three notes across one string set.
- Tap a note to hear it
- Arrows change position
- Fingers, notes or intervals
- Play the chord
About Gaug — triad voicings
Gaug is G, B and D# — G with the fifth raised a semitone.
It sounds stretched, and suspended between keys. Its commonest job is passing between a major triad and its sixth or seventh, with the raised fifth as a single voice walking up.
Gaug notes and formula
| G | B | D# |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | ♯5 |
Passing chord — it belongs to no key in particular.
Also written G+, G(#5) or G augmented. The same chord either way; which spelling you meet depends on who wrote the chart.
How to play Gaug
Three notes on one string set. No seventh, so nothing is claimed about the chord beyond its quality.
Thin on their own, excellent over a bass line or against someone else’s harmony.
Gaug has 46 of them, on the bottom three strings, the low-middle three, the high-middle three, the bottom four strings, the middle four strings, the top four strings, the top three strings, strings 6-4-3-2 and strings 5-3-2-1, from open position up to the 13th — every inversion the chord has: G in the bass, B in the bass and D# in the bass. The one to learn first is the G shape at the nut, which is the easiest grip here.
6 of them sit on the bottom four strings, so you can run the inversions up one set without changing strings — which is the whole reason to learn them as a family rather than as separate grips.
Start with 32100x — 2 open strings and only 3 fretted notes. 1 of the 9 shapes here sits in open position. None of them needs a barre. Together they cover the neck from the 1st fret to the 15th.
| Frets | Where | Bass | Top | Hand |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32100x | open position | G, root position | B | 2 open strings |
| 3x5443 | 3rd fret | G, root position | G | all fretted |
| xx5443 | 3rd fret | G, root position | G | all fretted |
| xx9887 | 7th fret | B, 1st inversion | B | all fretted |
| x-10-9-8-8-x | 8th fret | G, root position | G | all fretted |
| x-10-x-12-12-11 | 10th fret | G, root position | D# | all fretted |
| x-10-13-12-12-x | 10th fret | G, root position | B | all fretted |
| x-x-x-12-12-11 | 11th fret | G, root position | D# | all fretted |
| 15-14-13-12-12-x | 12th fret | G, root position | B | all fretted |
The same notes rebuilt from scratch give 1 open string voicings, each on its own page.
What to play over Gaug
Every note of Gaug is in G whole tone and G altered.
Chords near Gaug
Change one note of Gaug and you have G (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth), Gmaj7#5 (add the major seventh), Gaug7 (add the flat seventh), G/B (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth) or G/D (the sharp fifth becomes a fifth).
Gaug is a augmented chord — root, major third, sharp fifth. Augmented chords on every root.
On Gaug’s sound and use this page follows Stefan Kostka, Dorothy Payne & Byron Almén, Tonal Harmony (McGraw-Hill, 8th ed., 2018). The shapes and the derived voicings come from different places, and both are explained in where the chords and the theory come from.