Mandolin Chord Chart
A chord has more than one shape on a mandolin, and this chart finds all of them instead of drawing one. Name a root and a quality and it works out the notes the chord needs, then searches every set of four fret positions on the G, D, A and E courses that sounds those notes inside the fret range and the hand span you set, closest stretch first. Each shape is drawn with the interval each note plays against the root, so you can see that the third is what makes it major, and the notes under the diagram are computed from the open strings rather than stored beside a chord name. Frets run 0 to 24, the span buttons run 2 to 5, the diagram mirrors for a left-handed player, and the shapes on screen print as a sheet: 24 are drawn at a time, with the full count beside them. Nothing is uploaded and no picture is fetched for a chord, so it draws the same offline.
G majorfretsspan
G major (G) tuning GDAE, right handed G D A E 0 0 2 3 shorthand 0023 notes G D B G intervals R 5 3 R span 2 frets, lowest fret 2 4 shapes fit frets 0 to 5 with a span of 4 or less, the most compact first.
G major is G B D. Every shape here sounds all three of those notes, on all four courses.
How to read the diagram. The four pairs of vertical lines are the courses, the low G on the left, and each pair is the two strings tuned alike that you press together. The heavy line across the top is the nut; a shape further up the neck loses it and says which fret its first box is, like 7fr. A dot is a note to press on that course, and the letter in it is what that note is against the root: R the root, 3 the third, 5 the fifth, b7 a flat seventh. Which finger takes which dot is yours to choose: the chart does not guess it. An o above a course means it rings open, and every shape here sounds all four courses. The letters under the diagram are the notes the shape sounds, computed from the open strings, which is why they change with the chord and never with the picture. Notes are named with sharps throughout, so the flat seventh of F reads D# rather than the Eb a songbook might print.
Common questions
- How do you read a mandolin chord diagram?
- The four pairs of vertical lines are the courses, with the low G pair on the left and the high E pair on the right, as though the mandolin were stood up in front of you. The heavy line across the top is the nut, so the first horizontal line below it is the first fret. A dot is a note to press on that course, and the letter inside it says what that note is against the root: R the root, 3 the third, 5 the fifth, b7 a flat seventh. An o above a course means it rings open. The letters under the diagram are the notes the shape actually sounds. A shape that sits further up the neck is drawn without the nut, with a marker like 7fr beside the first box saying which fret the box starts at.
- Why does a mandolin chord show four positions when the instrument has eight strings?
- Because a mandolin's eight strings are four courses of two, and the two strings of a course are tuned to the same note and pressed together as one. So the instrument is played as four voices, and a chord shape is four numbers, one per course, read from the low G course up: 0 0 2 3 is G major. The diagram here draws each course as the pair of lines it really is, which is the only place the eight strings show up, and the shorthand is written G to E whichever hand you play with, because that is how every songbook and every teacher writes it down.
- What does the fret span setting do?
- It is the stretch, not the position. The span of a shape is counted from its lowest fretted note to its highest, inclusively, so 0 0 2 3 is two frets wide. An open course costs the hand nothing and is not counted. The buttons offer 2, 3, 4 and 5 frets, and any shape wider than the number you pick is left out of the chart rather than quietly shown as though it were playable. That is the setting to change when a chord looks impossible: drop the span to 2 or 3 and what is left is what a hand can hold without moving.
- Can I see the same chord further up the neck?
- Yes, and that is the thing a picture chart cannot do. Type a first and last fret, anything from 0 to 24, and the search runs the whole window: 5 to 9 gives the shapes under a hand that has moved up, 12 to 24 gives what is left where the body starts. The list is sorted with the smallest stretch first, then the shape nearest the nut, and the count beside it says how many fit. When a window holds more than 24 shapes it draws the first 24 and says so with the real total, so nothing disappears without a word.
- Which chords can it chart?
- Twelve roots, named with sharps, and the quality menu has 10 entries: major, minor, seventh, major seventh, minor seventh, sixth, sus2, sus4, diminished and augmented. A triad has to sound all three of its notes here, because a shape missing the third is not the chord any more. A four-note chord like a seventh often will not fit on four courses without help, so it is allowed to leave out the fifth, which is the note that carries least of its character, and any shape that does say so: the chart names the missing note instead of pretending it is there.
- Why does a note read D# when my chord book prints Eb?
- Because every note on this chart is named with a sharp, one rule applied everywhere, so an F seventh is spelled F A C D# here. D# and Eb are the same pitch: the same fret, the same sound, two names for it. Strict spelling follows the key a chord sits in, and that needs a key for every chord, which a search that works from the notes alone does not carry. One rule, stated, beats a rule that is right for some chords and quietly wrong for others.
- Does it say which finger to press with?
- No, and that is deliberate. The search finds where the notes are; which finger reaches which dot depends on the hand, on the chord before and the chord after, and on whether you are about to slide. Two players use different fingers for the same four dots and both are right. What the diagram does carry is the interval inside each dot and the note under each course, which is the information that tells you what you are holding.
- Does the chart work for a left-handed player?
- Yes. Press the handedness button and the whole diagram mirrors: the low G course moves to the right of the picture, and the dots, the o marks and the note letters move with it. The printed sheet mirrors too. One thing does not flip, on purpose: the written shape stays in G D A E order, so a G major is still 0 0 2 3 whichever way round you hold the instrument.
- Can I print the chart or copy it?
- Press Print chart, or use the browser's own print command, and the shapes currently on screen print as a sheet, redrawn in black on white with their frets, notes and intervals, four to a row. The diagrams are drawn in the page rather than loaded as images, so they print at whatever resolution your printer has. Copy puts the shape you are looking at on the clipboard as plain text: the course letters, the frets under them, the notes, the intervals and the span, which pastes into a set list or a lesson note without a picture.
Shapes are computed from the notes each chord needs on standard GDAE tuning, within the fret range and span you set. Each string here is a course of two strings tuned alike, which is why a shape shows four positions rather than eight.