Chord Shapes

The term “chord shapes” refers to the pattern that occurs on the fretboard when notes of a particular chord are played.

Below (on the left) is a chord shape of F major. Often you will see chord shapes as dots on a grid that represents the guitar fretboard. Other times you might see a chord shape represented with the notes as the diagram below (on the right). Both ways of representing the chord are helpful ways to learning chords, especially for beginners.

chord shapes

f you are planning on only learning a few chords these chord shape are perfectly fine. However, if you want to learn chords this way you have better have a superb memory. When you tally up the possible chord shapes playable positions on the guitar, it looks like this:

chords possible

Learning chords based solely on shape is a like learning to write Chinese. Yes, you can do it but there is an easier, faster way. There is a way to learn chords that frees you from constantly looking through chord charts. This way also allows you to build your own chords giving you nearly infinite chordal possibilities.

chord shape interval

Knowing Chord Intervals
When you know the intervals that make up the chord shapes you can use that information to identify the notes on the fretboard. This assumes you know the where on the fretboard the root note is located.

The diagrams on this page show how this works with a major chord shape with its root on the sixth and first string.

The shape moves up the neck without changing. However, the shape will “cover” a new set of notes.

chords shapes intervals neck

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