Guitar chords in the key of G, C, D, A, E and every other key

A key hands you seven chords, and it hands the same seven to everybody, in the same order of qualities. Learn the order once and you can work out the chords of any key on paper, without a chart. Below is every major key with its seven chords, the four that songs actually lean on, its relative minor, and what each one costs your fretting hand on a guitar, because that part is not the same from key to key.

How a key gives you its chords

A key is a scale, and the chords of the key are built from the notes of that scale and nothing else. Take the seven notes, start on the first one, and stack every other note: you get a three note chord. Do the same starting on the second note, then the third, and so on. Seven notes, seven chords, no choices made by anybody.

What comes out is not seven major chords, and that is the useful part. The gaps between the notes of a major scale are uneven, so the chord you get depends on where you started. The pattern is always the same:

major, minor, minor, major, major, minor, diminished

Written as degrees, which is how musicians talk about it, that is I ii iii IV V vi vii°. A capital numeral is a major chord, a lowercase one is minor, and the little circle means diminished. The numerals matter because they travel: a song that goes I V vi IV goes to the same four places in any key, and only the letters change.

Four of the seven do nearly all the work in popular music: the first, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth. Every section below names those four on their own line, because if you learn only them you can play a great many songs in that key, and because recognizing them in a chord sheet is how you work out the key in the first place.

Chords in the key of G

The four you will use most: G, C, D, Em.

Relative minor: Em (E minor). Its own three chords are Em, Am, Bm, and a song in that key will often borrow B major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Bm does.

The four you will use most are the first four shapes most people ever learn, and all four sit inside the first three frets. That is the whole reason so much folk, country and singer-songwriter guitar lives in this key: you can play a complete song in it without a barre. The two that do need one, Bm and the diminished chord, are also the two a song in G is least likely to ask for.

Chords in the key of C

The four you will use most: C, F, G, Am.

Relative minor: Am (A minor). Its own three chords are Am, Dm, Em, and a song in that key will often borrow E major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Em does.

Five of the seven have open shapes. The one that stops people is the fourth degree, F, because the usual grip asks one finger to press several strings at once. There is a four string version of it that carries you a long way and that plenty of players never leave behind.

Chords in the key of D

The four you will use most: D, G, A, Bm.

Relative minor: Bm (B minor). Its own three chords are Bm, Em, F#m, and a song in that key will often borrow F# major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than F#m does.

D, G, A and Em all sit inside the first three frets. The barres in this key are F#m and Bm, and Bm is the one you meet first, because the sixth degree turns up in so many songs that it has sent most players looking for a barre technique in the first place. A capo at the second fret with shapes from the key of C gives you this key with no barre at all.

Chords in the key of A

The four you will use most: A, D, E, F#m.

Relative minor: F#m (F sharp minor). Its own three chords are F#m, Bm, C#m, and a song in that key will often borrow C# major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than C#m does.

A, D and E are the three friendliest major shapes on the guitar, which is why so much blues and rock sits here. The sixth degree, F#m, is the barre you will need, and the second and third degrees, Bm and C#m, join it as soon as a song uses them.

Chords in the key of E

The four you will use most: E, A, B, C#m.

Relative minor: C#m (C sharp minor). Its own three chords are C#m, F#m, G#m, and a song in that key will often borrow G# major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than G#m does.

E and A are open, and the fifth degree, B, is the barre that defines this key. Two common ways round it: B7 has an open position shape and does the same job at the end of a phrase, and a great deal of rock guitar plays the whole key in power chords, where the shape moves and the fingering never changes.

Chords in the key of F

The four you will use most: F, Bb, C, Dm.

Relative minor: Dm (D minor). Its own three chords are Dm, Gm, Am, and a song in that key will often borrow A major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Am does.

Capo: fret 3, playing shapes from the key of D.

Two of the four chords you use most, F and Bb, are barres, which makes this an awkward key to strum with open shapes. A capo at the third fret with shapes from the key of D gives you the same sounds and no barre. Horn players love this key; guitars tolerate it.

Chords in the key of Bb

The four you will use most: Bb, Eb, F, Gm.

Relative minor: Gm (G minor). Its own three chords are Gm, Cm, Dm, and a song in that key will often borrow D major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Dm does.

Capo: fret 3, playing shapes from the key of G.

Only the sixth degree, Dm, has a comfortable open shape, so almost nobody plays this key in open position. A capo at the third fret with shapes from the key of G gives it to you exactly. This is a key you meet because a singer or a brass section chose it, not because a guitarist did.

Chords in the key of Eb

The four you will use most: Eb, Ab, Bb, Cm.

Relative minor: Cm (C minor). Its own three chords are Cm, Fm, Gm, and a song in that key will often borrow G major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Gm does.

Capo: fret 3, playing shapes from the key of C.

Nothing in this key has an open shape. A capo at the third fret with shapes from the key of C is the standard answer, and it is not a shortcut: it is how guitarists have always played in flat keys. Without the capo, every chord is a barre.

Chords in the key of Ab

The four you will use most: Ab, Db, Eb, Fm.

Relative minor: Fm (F minor). Its own three chords are Fm, Bbm, Cm, and a song in that key will often borrow C major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Cm does.

Capo: fret 1, playing shapes from the key of G.

Four flats, and no open shapes. A capo at the first fret with shapes from the key of G turns the whole key into open chords. Reading the table is still worth it, because the degrees are what tell you which chord the song is heading for.

Chords in the key of Db

The four you will use most: Db, Gb, Ab, Bbm.

Relative minor: Bbm (B flat minor). Its own three chords are Bbm, Ebm, Fm, and a song in that key will often borrow F major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than Fm does.

Capo: fret 1, playing shapes from the key of C.

Five flats, which looks alarming and changes nothing about the degrees. A capo at the first fret with shapes from the key of C gives you the key. Note the fourth degree: it is Gb and not F#, because a key uses each letter once and the letter G is the one the fourth degree has to take.

Chords in the key of B

The four you will use most: B, E, F#, G#m.

Relative minor: G#m (G sharp minor). Its own three chords are G#m, C#m, D#m, and a song in that key will often borrow D# major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than D#m does.

Capo: fret 2, playing shapes from the key of A.

Open shapes do not reach this key. A capo at the second fret with shapes from the key of A gives it to you, and so does a capo at the fourth fret with shapes from the key of G, which sits higher and sounds brighter. Pick whichever suits the voice.

Chords in the key of F#

The four you will use most: F#, B, C#, D#m.

Relative minor: D#m (D sharp minor). Its own three chords are D#m, G#m, A#m, and a song in that key will often borrow A# major as its fifth degree, because a major chord there pulls home far harder than A#m does.

Capo: fret 2, playing shapes from the key of E.

The sharpest of the twelve, and the one that shows the spelling rule most clearly: the seventh degree is written E# rather than F, because the letter E is the only one left for it. A capo at the second fret with shapes from the key of E gives you the key, and a capo at the fourth with shapes from the key of D does too.

Using a capo to reach a hard key

Some of the keys above contain no open chord at all, and others keep their open shapes for the degrees a song uses least. That is not a flaw in your playing, it is the guitar. Standard tuning puts open strings on E, A, D, G and B, so keys built on those notes get the easy shapes and the others do not.

A capo moves the open strings. Clamp it at the third fret and the shape you know as G sounds as B flat, so the whole key of B flat becomes the shapes of the key of G, with every open string still ringing. Nothing about the degrees changes: the first degree is still the first degree, it just has a different letter on the page from the one under your fingers.

That is also the one thing a capo asks of you: know which chord you are actually sounding, not just which shape you are making. The guitar capo chart lists every shape at every fret and what it sounds as, which is the fastest way to go from a chord sheet in a flat key to something your hands already know.

From the chords to a progression

A key is a set of chords. A progression is an order, and the order is where the music is. The same four chords arranged differently sound like different songs, because what a chord does depends entirely on the chord before it and the chord after it.

Start with the two orders that between them cover an enormous amount of popular music. I IV V I goes home, opens, tenses, resolves. I V vi IV goes home, tenses, turns minor, opens, and comes back around. Play either one in three different keys using the tables above and the point of the numerals becomes obvious: your hands are doing something different each time, and your ears are hearing the same thing.

Our chord progression generator will play an order back to you in any key, with a tempo and a rhythm, which is a faster way to hear what a degree does than reading about it. And if you want to see where each chord sits on the neck rather than on the page, the guitar fretboard notes map shows you which note is where, which is what a chord shape is made of.

Where to go for the shapes themselves

This page names the chords. Making them ring is a separate job, and three pages here do it.

• Basic guitar chords writes out the open shapes finger by finger. Between them they cover the keys of G, C, D, A and E, which is to say most of what you will play for the first year.
• Barre chords covers the two movable shapes that reach every key, and more to the point how to make one sound without the hand aching. One barre shape replaces a column of this page.
• The CAGED system is the next step after that: five shapes for the same chord, which is how a player finds the version of a chord that sits closest to the one before it.

For a printed reference to keep beside the guitar, our guitar chord chart prints the common shapes on one sheet, with no text to translate.