Beginner Guitar Chord Chart

How to use this chord chart

1. Start at stage one and work down. The chart is ordered by how hard the shape is to hold, not alphabetically. The first six chords need two fingers or fewer, and Em needs two fingers in the same fret — that is the one to learn today.
2. Read the diagram like a guitar stood on end. The thick bar at the top is the nut, the vertical lines are the strings with the low E on the left, and the numbers in the dots tell you which finger to use (1 is your index, 4 is your pinky).
3. Tap "Hear" before you decide it sounds wrong. Beginners nearly always assume a buzzing chord means the wrong shape. Play the chord through the tool first — if yours sounds different, the shape is right and the problem is finger pressure or a muted string.
4. Tick the chords you can already play. The panel at the top counts the song progressions those chords unlock and names the single chord that would open the most new ones. That is a much better practice list than "learn all of them."
5. Print the ones you're working on. Hit the PDF button and you get a clean chart of only your ticked chords, plus the progressions they play, on one page for the music stand.

Why this chord chart is different

Almost every beginner chord chart online is a picture. Some are good pictures, but they all share the same shape: a fixed set of chords, decided by someone else, that you either take whole or leave. This one is built differently.

• You choose what's on it. Tick the chords you're learning and the printable PDF contains those and nothing else. A chart with 80 chords on it is a poster; a chart with your six is a practice tool.
• Every chord plays. Tap "Hear" on any shape and it sounds the actual voicing, string by string. It works on a phone, which matters, because the one other chart with audio binds it to a mouse hover.
• It's left-handed too. One toggle mirrors all 26 diagrams, with the finger numbers still the right way up. Roughly one player in ten needs this and nearly nobody offers it.
• It answers "so what can I play?" Instead of just showing shapes, it maps your ticked chords onto 24 real progressions with their roman numerals and keys — so you can see that Em, G, C and D between them cover most of a folk set.
• No barre chords, on purpose. Every shape here is open position, fret 4 or lower. Where a chord normally needs a barre, you get the honest four-string version — the mini-F, and Bm7 instead of Bm — so nothing on this page is out of reach in week one.
• The shapes are checked, not just typed. See the methodology below: every grip on this chart is verified on each build against a second, separately written engine.

How it works (the fretboard math)

A chord diagram is just a set of instructions for which pitches your six strings will make. In standard tuning the open strings are E A D G B E, and each fret raises a string by one half-step. Number the twelve notes 0–11 (C = 0 up to B = 11) and the note a string sounds is simply:

note = ( open string + fret ) mod 12

open strings = E A D G B E = 4, 9, 2, 7, 11, 4

major triad = root, +4, +7        (1, 3, 5)      C E G
minor triad = root, +3, +7        (1, b3, 5)     C Eb G
dominant 7  = root, +4, +7, +10   (1, 3, 5, b7)  C E G Bb

A chord shape is correct when the notes it actually sounds are exactly the notes the chord is made of. That is a test a computer can run, and this chart runs it on every build for all 26 shapes. Where the standard grip leaves a note out, the chart says so rather than quietly hiding it: the open C7 has no G in it, because all four fingers are already committed and the chord reads perfectly clearly without its fifth. That is the only omission on the page, and the build fails if a second one ever appears.

Note names are spelled the way a musician would write them, not the way a calculator would. A7 reads A C♯ E G, never A D♭ E G, because the third of A has to be a C of some kind. It is a small thing that separates a chart made by someone who plays from one made by someone who does not.

Three ways players actually use this

Week one: the two-finger start

Tick Em and Em7 and nothing else. Two shapes, three fingers total between them, and the change between them is lifting one finger. Spend a week swapping between those in time with our metronome before adding anything. Almost every beginner who quits does so because they started with F.

Month two: unlocking your first real songs

Tick G, C and D and the tool reports exactly one progression: the three-chord folk backbone. Add Em and it jumps to five, because Em + G + C + D is the four-chord loop behind an enormous slice of pop music, in four different rotations. That single chord is the highest return on practice time available to you, and the chart tells you so rather than making you guess.

The F problem

When you hit F, do not start with the six-string barre. Tick Fmaj7 — same three fingers as the top of the barre shape, no bar at all — and use it in place of F. Then move to the four-string F on this chart, where your index covers only the top two strings. By the time the full barre is worth learning, your hand already knows the shape. If your guitar fights you the whole way, it is often the strings rather than you: a light set like the ones in our roundup of the best acoustic guitar strings takes real effort off a beginner's fingertips.

Frequently asked questions

What chords should a beginner guitarist learn first?

Em, then Em7, then A7 and Am7 — all two fingers or fewer. Then the core open shapes: G, C, D, A, E, Am and Dm. Most guitar teachers start with E or G because they sound impressive, but Em is genuinely the easiest full-sounding chord on the instrument: two fingers, side by side, in the same fret, and all six strings ring. Our guitar chords for beginners guide walks through the fingering for each one in detail.

What are the 5 basic guitar chords?

The five usually named are G, C, D, Em and Am. Between them they cover an enormous number of songs, because G–C–D is the I–IV–V in the key of G and adding Em and Am gives you the two most common minor chords in that key. Tick those five on the chart above and it will show you the progressions they open.

How do you read a guitar chord chart with finger numbers?

The grid is the first few frets of your guitar seen head-on, turned upright. The thick line across the top is the nut. Vertical lines are the strings, thickest (low E) on the left. A dot means press that string at that fret, and the number in the dot is which finger: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 pinky. An o above a string means play it open, and an x means do not play it at all. Flip the left-handed toggle and the whole grid mirrors, with the numbers still readable.

Can I get this beginner chord chart as a printable PDF?

Yes, and it is free with no email required. Tick the chords you want, press Printable PDF of my chords, and you get a vector PDF of exactly those shapes with finger numbers, note names and the progressions they play. It respects the left-handed setting too. Unlike a downloaded image, it prints crisp at any size because the diagrams are drawn as vectors, not pixels.

Do I need to learn barre chords like F to play songs?

Not for a long while. Nothing on this chart is a barre chord. Fmaj7 stands in for F in most songs, Bm7 stands in for Bm, and the four-string F here is a real F that only asks your index finger to cover two strings. Learn the full barre when your hand is already strong from these shapes, not before — attempting it in week one is the single most common reason beginners give up. When you do want them, the how to play guitar guide covers the transition.

Related tools

• Chord Identifier — found a shape that isn't on this chart? Tap it onto a fretboard and get its name.
• Chord Transposer — a song in a key you can't play yet? Move it into G or C and use these shapes, with the capo position worked out.
• Interactive Circle of Fifths — see which chords belong together in a key, and why Em, G, C and D keep showing up as a set.
• Guitar Scales Chart — the next step after chords: the scales that solo over them.
• 120 BPM Metronome — chord changes only count if they land in time.
• Browse all free musician's tools by Julian →

Gear that makes these chords easier

The suggestions under your result change with how many chords you've ticked, because a player on their first two shapes needs different things from one who can hold a progression down. Three things genuinely matter early on. A clip-on tuner, because none of these shapes sound like the chart says on an out-of-tune guitar and beginners routinely blame their fingers for what is a tuning problem. Light-gauge strings, because factory strings on a cheap acoustic are often heavier than they need to be and make a beginner's fingertips give up early — see the best acoustic guitar strings. And a spread of picks in different thicknesses, since pick gauge changes how a strummed chord rings more than most people expect. If you have not bought the guitar yet, start with the best beginner acoustic guitars, or the best beginner electric guitars if lighter strings and a lower action sound like the right trade.

Sources & methodology

• Tuning and pitch. Standard tuning E–A–D–G–B–E, A4 = 440 Hz. The note a string sounds is (open string + fret) mod 12; playback frequency is 440 · 2^((m−69)/12), so the open 6th string plays at 82.41 Hz and the open 1st at 329.63 Hz.
• Chord construction. Tones come from interval formulas (major 1 3 5, minor 1 ♭3 5, dominant 7th 1 3 5 ♭7, major 7th, minor 7th, sus2, sus4, add9) and are spelled by diatonic letter step, so the accidental follows the letter rather than the other way round. Reference: musictheory.net chord and interval lessons.
• Grips. Standard open-position fingerings as taught in mainstream method books. Where a grip omits a chord tone it is declared and shown on the chart; the open C7 (no fifth) is the only such shape here.
• Verification. 26 shapes are checked on every build by a fixture suite of 494 assertions. Each grip's sounded notes must match its chord tones exactly; each is separately fed to the engine behind our chord identifier, which was written independently for the reverse problem and must arrive at the same chord name; and structural rules are enforced — open position only, root position throughout, finger numbers consistent with the frets, and no full barre anywhere on the chart. If any of that drifts, the site does not build.

Chord shapes are conventions, not laws. These are the standard open-position fingerings taught in most method books, and where a shape leaves out a chord tone the chart says so. If your teacher or your songbook fingers one differently, both can be right. Reviewed by Julian Reyes, MM (Berklee). About Julian · Last reviewed August 24, 2026.

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