How to find the accurate guitar chord chart for any song

Learning how to play a song by ear is tricky, even for the seasoned musician. That’s why so many guitarists turn to guitar chord charts when they’re trying to figure out the chords for a new tune. There are lots of websites, apps, and books out there offering collections of popular music. Each has its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

If you want to listen to songs while you study their chord charts, we recommend the free online TheoryTab database. In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of how to use it and some alternative resources, so you have everything you need.

What is a guitar chord chart?

A guitar chord chart is a diagram that displays chord shapes in tablature format, with chord names to properly identify them.

Chord charts, as a whole, are used to communicate chord progressions featured in a jazz standard or song. However, guitar chord diagrams can also stand alone as educational tools to show where the fretting hand and fingers should be placed for every chord.

Beginner guitarists tend to reference the standalone charts when they’re first learning how to play. They’re popular learning materials for guitar lessons. Later, the same chord shapes will appear alongside Roman numerals to explain the music theory behind a chord progression.

How to read guitar chord diagrams

Image credit: Wikipedia (Creative Commons license)

Chord diagrams use a special format to communicate different shapes. In the example above, vertical lines represent the six strings, while horizontal lines represent each of the different frets. Open strings are at the top, represented by the thick black bar, and as they move down, they represent moving up the fretboard.

Some chord diagrams read left to right instead of top down. Each chord can be played in several different positions. Sometimes, changing the position leads to a new voicing or inversion, but other times, it’s an identical chord located up or down the neck of the guitar. To accommodate that range of options, the fretboard image will become longer and flipped to a horizontal view.

As a rule, chord diagrams are written for left-handed guitarists (the fretting hand), with the right hand responsible for plucking the strings. For more information, check out this free and detailed overview from Liberty Park Music.

Easy guitar chord shapes you should know

There are a few basic chords that everyone should learn on guitar before trying to read full charts. We’ll touch on each of them below and share some diagrams for your reference.

Power chords

Power chords are the simplest chord shapes you can play on the guitar. They earned the name because of their simplicity, adaptability, and harmonic consonance. In music theory, the interval is called a perfect fifth.

Your index finger goes on the lower note, and your pinky or ring finger goes on the next string, which is two frets higher than the index position. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

You can slide power chords up and down the neck, and they will retain their shape on any adjacent strings, with the exception of the G and B strings. These two are separated by a major third interval instead of the usual perfect fourth interval, so the fret distance is three instead of the usual two.

Barre chords

Once you’ve become comfortable with power chords, you can extend to barre chords. These retain the perfect fifth interval at their base but build upward across all six guitar strings to form major and minor chords. Here’s what they look like:

Your index finger holds down all of the strings on a single fret. The ring finger plays the fifth, and your pinky holds down the octave. If it’s a major chord, your middle finger plays the major third. Otherwise, your middle finger can lift to play the minor chord. Remove the pinky to barre a minor 7th chord, as shown above.

Open string voicings

Open chords are a special type of guitar voicing that combines open strings (fret number 0) with fretted strings (fret number 1-15). They’re typically in the bottom three frets and used to play simple major or minor chords. Here’s a diagram showcasing open chord voicings on guitar for A major and A minor, including 6th and 7th note extensions.

Unlike power chords and barre chords, open chords come in a variety of shapes. That’s because the root, third, and fifth notes may or may not be available on an open string.

Compare the A major and minor voicings above to the C major and C minor in this next guitar chord chart. There are fewer open voicings available because of the root note and open strings:

Individual chord charts (no songs or chord progressions)

Looking for chord diagrams that show you how to play the various guitar voicings? Here are some of the most popular and high-quality resources on the internet.

None of these are sponsored, and we don’t use any affiliate links:

1. Truefire is one of the best places to find guitar lessons online. They host original instructional video content from 300 of the world’s best guitarists. Check out this free online guitar chord chart for an overview of extensions that go beyond the 7th chord.
2. Guitar Tricks offers a different approach, with a chord directory that you click through until you find exactly what you need. Start by choosing the root note, then the chord type (major, minor, diminished, and augmented), with the extension. Once you’ve clicked through, you’ll find a series of chord charts in tablature format with many possible voicings.
3. The Guitar Grimoire is a physical book that exhaustively covers every possible chord and scale voicing on the fretboard. It’s a great resource to have on hand if you want a paperback alternative to browsing the web.

Where to find guitar chord charts for popular songs

For decades, guitarists bought books to get access to chord charts for popular music. Jazz musicians bought the Real Book if they had enough money or bootlegged the Fake Book. During the 1970’s and onward, popular songs by folk artists were licensed and compiled into songbooks. These included guitar chord charts with lyrics and melodies.

The internet has transformed access to music, shifting from printed copies to website directories with massive song collections like Chordify, Songsterr, and Ultimate Guitar. We’re going to focus on TheoryTab because, after a deep audit of all the available options, we found it to be the most comprehensive, free solution.

TheoryTab: Find interactive guitar chord charts for 50,000+ songs

The TheoryTab database at Hooktheory currently holds one of the largest collections of chord charts for guitar and piano. It includes songs from every genre and grows steadily each year as users submit new charts for the community to enjoy. Best of all, TheoryTab is completely free to use. You get unlimited access even if you never sign up for an account.

To start, visit TheoryTab and search for a song you want to learn (or search by chord progression). When the page loads, click on the guitar option and select chords instead of melody.

Each TheoryTab song includes the following features:

• Melody is available in MIDI notation and guitar tablature
• Chord names and Roman numerals are displayed below the MIDI melody
• Option to shift the song into any other signature instantly
• Beginner-friendly chord voicings for each song
• Embedded music options so users can listen to the song as they play along

Here’s how guitar chords are displayed in the interface. Sometimes, the same note is shown on two different frets, so you can choose the voicing you prefer.

Notice that in this example, the same note is shown on the low and high e string. You can experiment with removing the bass note from voicings and playing the higher octave on the top string. This creates space for the bass player to fill that frequency instead.

Hooktheory always opts for easy guitar chord voicings when possible. For example, an A minor chord will be shown using the open strings so that fewer fingers are required to play it. Be mindful of the black X symbol located over strings that you’re not intended to play.

If you prefer to hit higher pitch registers, you can always experiment with different positions, like the barre chord on the fifth and seventh frets.

One of the extra perks of Hooktheory is that it displays the Roman Numeral notation for each chord. This means that you can learn how it fits into the chord progression as a whole. Click on the chord name or Roman numeral to view the voicing in the tablature view.

Start exploring 50,000+ free guitar chord charts in Hooktheory’s TheoryTab database today!