Arrow keys move between strings and frets. Enter or Space selects a note.
Swipe the neck for higher frets ›
Tap notes on the fretboard and the builder names the chord.
Tap a lit note to lift your finger.
Building a chord shape
Tap a fret on any string to put a finger there. Tap a lit note again to lift the finger, and the string rings open. The mark just before each string’s nut switches that string between open and not played (✕). The short fifth string has its own nut at the 5th fret, so it has no notes at frets 1 to 5. With a keyboard, the arrow keys move between strings and frets, and Enter or Space taps.
Reading the chord name
The builder names every chord made of exactly the notes you play, in any octave. When more than one name fits, it lists them all: in Open G, frets 0 2 0 0 0 are both Em7 and G6. The first name is the one built on your lowest note, when there is one, and it sets the note names on the frets.
“D in the bass” means your lowest note is not the chord’s root. That is normal on a banjo: strum all five open strings in Open G and you hear a G chord, but the lowest note is the 4th string’s D, because the fifth string is tuned high.
When no name fits, the builder lists the notes it hears instead. One note is not a chord, and some groups of notes are not among the chord types the builder knows.
Sharing a shape
Share sends a link to the shape on screen, in its tuning. On a computer it copies the link. Opening the link shows the same shape and switches to that tuning.