The CHORDS Page

Here you will find chord charts and diagrams with the most common chords for Guitar, 5 string Banjo, and Mandolin/GDAE tenor banjo, plus some two string chords for the most common keys for fiddle(violin). There is also some music theory and playing hints. The chord charts provided are provided as high resolution (600dpi) graphics so you should be able to produce good quality print-outs from them if needed.

You may also be interested to check out our music education section which includes more info on chords & scales.

The chords lists provided here are only a tiny proportion of all the possible chords but are probably far more than even the most "jazzy" player of traditional and folk music will ever use. Currently only chord charts for Guitar, 5 string Banjo, and Mandolin (the mandolin chords should also work for GDAE tenor banjo) are provided. The fiddle (violin) chords are of course for two strings only and only for the most commonly used keys in traditional music folk music.

Chords beginning	Instrument type
A	guitar	banjo	mandolin	Fiddle
Bb/a#	guitar	banjo	mandolin	Fiddle
B	guitar	banjo	mandolin	Fiddle
C	guitar	banjo	mandolin	Fiddle
Db/C#	guitar	banjo	mandolin	.
D	guitar	banjo	mandolin	Fiddle
Eb/D#	guitar	banjo	mandolin	.
E	guitar	banjo	mandolin	.
F	guitar	banjo	mandolin	.
Gb/F#	guitar	banjo	mandolin	.
G	guitar	banjo	mandolin	Fiddle
Ab/G#	guitar	banjo	mandolin
Click the instrument type in the row for the chords you want to see. Notes: The chords are for standard tunings for guitar and mandolin and for the most commonly used G tuning for 5 string banjo. Minor chords us a small "m" major by a cap, e.g. Am7 = A minor 7th AM7= A major 7, Augmented and diminished chords are often represented by a + and - suffix e.g. A+ A-, however I have used the more explanatory "aug" and "dim".

Hints For Playing Chords

Rather than trying to learn tons of different chord shapes, it may make sense (for banjo and guitar anyway), to learn just a couple, and use a capo to get the other keys. This is certainly the common practice in the fields of traditional old-time and bluegrass music, where, most players learn the "C" and "G" shapes and use a capo for any other keys. The reasons for learning at least two shape sets, and not just one, is that with just one, you may find yourself having to move uncomfortably far up the neck for some keys, also some shapes may not provide easy access to the melody notes you need to play a particular song. Some masochists may claim use of a capo is "cheating", and indeed some types of music need so much "weirdness" in the way of chords that a capo would be a hindrance, but as this site is about traditional stuff we don't talk about that kind of music on these pages. My view, as you might guess, is why suffer unnecessarily - life is to short and there are too many tunes to learn!

Which Chords to use for which key.

Each key has a set of chords which are the ones most commonly used for that key. Each of these chords corresponds to a step in the scale. These steps are traditionally numbered with Roman numerals (don't ask). The first step "I" is the first note of the scale, for example playing in C the I is C, the II is D the III is E and so on. I have prepared a chart HERE which gives details of the chords for each key. These Roman numerals are also the basis of the "Nashville Notation" with which you may sometimes see a song notated, e.g. with I, IV, V etc instead of chord names. Examples of this in action will sometimes be seen in hastily formed scratch bands where one of the musicians who knows the song may be seen raising numbers of fingers behind his back, he is usually not being rude but trying to help out by signaling what is the next chord to be played.

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