Chord symbol glossary: what each one means

A chord chart is an economical system: one or two letters tell you which notes to play together. The problem is that nobody teaches the alphabet — you learn Am and G by ear, and one day a Cmaj7(9)/E shows up and the whole page turns into code. This guide is the translation.

The letter on its own

The letter is the root note, and on its own it means a major chord. Seven letters cover every natural note:

C   D   E   F   G   A   B  →  C

Worth knowing if you read charts written elsewhere: in Latin countries the same notes are named Dó Ré Mi Fá Sol Lá Si, and in older German material H means B natural while B means B flat. Modern charts use the letters above, but a scanned old songbook may not.

# raises by a semitone, b lowers by a semitone. C# and Db are the same key, the same fret, the same sound.

Major, minor and what comes after

• C — major. Nothing written means major.
• Cm — minor. Also written Cmin or, in older material, C-.
• C5 — power chord: root and fifth only, no third. It is neither major nor minor, and that is exactly why it works with distortion.

The third is the note that decides between major and minor. Everything else in the symbol — sevenths, ninths, suspensions — is colour added on top of that decision.

The numbers

A number means an extra note has come in. The ones you actually meet day to day:

• C7 — dominant seventh. Deliberately unstable, asking to resolve. The blues chord, and the one that pulls to the next.
• Cmaj7 — major seventh. Sweet, suspended, in no hurry. Also written C7M or CΔ. Do not confuse it with C7: they have opposite personalities.
• Cm7 — minor with a seventh. The default chord of bossa, samba and soul.
• C6 — sixth. An older colour, from choro and forties jazz.
• C9, C11, C13 — extensions. In practice, more colour on the same chord; on a six-string guitar you almost always give up one of the notes.

Numbers in brackets, like C7(9), name the exact note that was added. If you do not know the shape, playing the base chord still works — the bracket is refinement, not obligation.

Suspensions and additions

• Csus4 — the third leaves and the fourth comes in. It hangs, and almost always resolves to the plain chord right after.
• Csus2 — same idea with the second. Open sound, lighter.
• Cadd9 — the ninth comes in without removing anything. Different from C9, which assumes the seventh is there too.

sus4is the easiest chord to recognise by ear: that instant of tension just before the chord "arrives".

Diminished and augmented

• Cdim or C° — diminished. Tense, unstable, almost always passing between two chords.
• Caug or C+ — augmented. Left hanging in the air, common at the end of a phrase.
• Cm7(b5) or Cø — half-diminished. Frequent in bossa and jazz.

The slash

A slash means chord with a different bass. Read it "C over E":

C/E    →  a C chord, but the lowest note is E
D/F#   →  a D chord with F# in the bass
G/B    →  a G chord with B in the bass

It almost always exists to make a bass line that walks down or up smoothly instead of jumping. The sequence C → G/B → Am has a bass walking C – B – A, and it is that walk that gives the sense of continuity.

If you play alone and the altered-bass shape is awkward, playing the plain chord is fine. The slash is voice-leading refinement — the harmony is still correct without it.

Markings that are not chords

• N.C. — no chord. Nobody plays harmony there; usually a space for the voice alone.
• % — repeat the previous bar.
• [Intro], [Chorus], [Bridge] — sections of the song.
• x2, x4 — how many times the passage repeats.
• Key: at the top — the key the chart was written in. It is the reference for transposing or choosing the capo fret.

Where the chord lands

In an aligned chart the horizontal position is not decoration: the chord changes exactly on the syllable underneath it.

      Am         C
There is a house in New

Here the Am starts on "is" and the Clands on "house". That is why chord charts need a monospaced font — in a normal font the alignment collapses and the information is lost.

The diagram

When the neck drawing appears alongside: the vertical lines are the strings, the horizontal ones the frets, and the dots show where the fingers go. Above the diagram, O is an open string and X is a string that should not sound. A number beside it says which fret the drawing starts on, when it is not the first.