How to Read Guitar Chord Diagrams

Chords are learned with the help of a chord diagram. A chord diagram is a grid of horizontal and vertical lines representing the strings and frets of the guitar. This will show you exactly where to place your left hand fingers in order to play a particular chord. The dots show you where to place your left hand fingers and the number tells you which finger to place down on the string just behind the fret (see previous photo). If there is no dot on a string, you play it as an open (not fretted) string. There are three basic types of chords that you will learn about as you progress – major chords (shown as red dots), minor chords (purple dots) and dominant chords (green dots).