A moveable shape has no open strings in it, so nothing in it is nailed to the nut and the whole chord shape slides. That makes it one thing to learn and twelve chords to play: the shape decides the quality, the fret decides the root. These 461 shapes cover 42 qualities, and each one is drawn with the degrees it is made of — including 51 drop 2 voicings, and 10 close voicings, the plain R–3–5–7 stack every chord book starts from.
Pick a quality below — each card shows the shape you would learn first. The dots are degrees rather than note names, because a note name would be wrong two frets up and a degree never is, and R is the root: the filled dot, the one you aim at.
The note under your first finger, per string and fret. It is the other half of every shape on this page.
| Fret | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| low E string | F | F♯ | G | A♭ | A | B♭ | B | C | C♯ | D | E♭ | E |
| A string | B♭ | B | C | C♯ | D | E♭ | E | F | F♯ | G | A♭ | A |
| D string | E♭ | E | F | F♯ | G | A♭ | A | B♭ | B | C | C♯ | D |
root, major third, fifth.
maj
Major triad
16 shapes · 13 inverted
maj7
Major seventh
19 shapes · 11 inverted
maj7♭5
Major seven flat five
9 shapes · 3 inverted
maj7♯5
Major seven sharp five
8 shapes · 3 inverted
maj9
Major ninth
6 shapes · 3 inverted
maj11
Major eleventh
6 shapes · 1 inverted
maj13
Major thirteenth
6 shapes · 3 inverted
add9
Add nine
6 shapes · 4 inverted
6
Major sixth
37 shapes · 25 inverted
69
Six-nine
9 shapes · 6 inverted
root, minor third, fifth.
m
Minor triad
17 shapes · 11 inverted
m6
Minor sixth
25 shapes · 15 inverted
m69
Minor six-nine
7 shapes · 5 inverted
m7
Minor seventh
24 shapes · 15 inverted
m9
Minor ninth
8 shapes · 4 inverted
m11
Minor eleventh
7 shapes · 2 inverted
mmaj7
Minor major seventh
12 shapes · 7 inverted
mmaj9
Minor major ninth
2 shapes · 1 inverted
mmaj11
Minor major eleventh
4 shapes · 2 inverted
madd9
Minor add nine
5 shapes · 2 inverted
root, major third, fifth, minor seventh.
a dominant seventh with its fifth or ninth moved.
root and fifth, with a second or fourth where the third would be — or nothing at all.
root, minor third, flat fifth.
root, major third, sharp fifth.
Every shape here was found by asking the chord dictionary which of its fingerings are the same shape at a different fret — a shape counts as moveable only where the dictionary records it working under all twelve roots. Chords indexed by root instead are on the full index, and a shape of your own can be identified with the diagram maker.
Shows each chord the way this style would voice it, and marks which of its alternatives belong to the idiom.