Guitar Chord Shape Finder
A chord chart is a table somebody typed, which is why it covers C, G and D in standard tuning and nothing else. Drop the bottom string to D, or ask for a B half-diminished, and you are on your own with a blank fretboard diagram. This searches instead — every combination of open, muted and fretted strings within a four-fret window — and keeps the ones whose notes actually spell the chord.
What this generator does
Walks every four-fret window up the neck, tries each string open, muted or fretted, and keeps the combinations whose sounding notes are exactly the notes of the chord.
How to use this tool
- Pick a root note and a chord type.
- Choose the tuning, including drop D, DADGAD, open G or a ukulele.
- Read the shapes, easiest first, written the way tab is: one number a string.
- Each shape lists what note every string is playing and which degree of the chord it is.
Understanding the controls
- Root note
- The note the chord is built on. Sharps are used throughout; A# and B♭ are the same note and the same shapes.
- Chord
- Major, minor, the sevenths, suspended, diminished, augmented, half-diminished, sixth and added ninth. Each is defined by its intervals from the root, which is what the search matches against.
- Tuning
- Standard, drop D, DADGAD, open G, a half step down, or a ukulele. Everything is computed from the open strings, so a tuning changes the answers rather than being a separate chart.
Common use cases
- Finding a chord in an altered tuning that no chart covers
- Playing a chord you have only ever seen written down
- Seeing several voicings of the same chord to pick the one that moves best
- Understanding which note of a chord each string is giving you
- Transferring a chord to a ukulele
How this generator works
The chord is a set of intervals from the root, which gives a set of notes. Each candidate shape's sounding strings are converted to notes and kept only if two things hold: nothing outside the chord is sounding, and nothing in the chord is missing. Shapes that mute a string in the middle are dropped, because that is a different technique and a different sound. The check then reads every published shape back off the fretboard and applies the same two tests again, so a shape cannot reach the page on the strength of the search's own bookkeeping. Ordering is a separate matter and openly a heuristic: the stretch, whether it needs a barre, how many strings are muted, how far up the neck it sits, and whether the root is in the bass.
Randomness and fairness
Nothing is random. The same chord in the same tuning always gives the same shapes in the same order.
For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.
Limitations and good to know
- Correctness and playability are different things — the notes are proved, the ranking is a rule of thumb.
- Shapes are searched to the twelfth fret, which is where they start repeating an octave up anyway.
- Inversions and slash chords are not asked for separately; a shape without the root in the bass is labelled rather than excluded.
- Fingering is not suggested; which finger goes where is left to you.
Privacy and your data
The search runs in your browser. No chords, tunings or results are transmitted or stored.
Related generators
- Fretboard Note FinderEvery place a note appears on the neck, in any tuning, worked out by counting semitones rather than read from a chart.
- Chord Voicing GeneratorVoices a progression in four parts so each voice moves as little as it can, with parallel fifths and octaves detected rather than assumed away.
- Capo Position CalculatorWhich capo position turns an awkward key into open chord shapes, with every option's shapes worked out and checked.
- Random Chord GeneratorDraw a random chord — triad, seventh, suspended or extended — with the notes it is built from and the intervals between them.