Guitar Chord

In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. It can be composed of notes played on adjacent or separate strings or all the strings together. Chord voicings designed for the guitar can be optimized for many different purposes and playing styles.

The guitar is generally very capable and versatile for chording purposes, but it does exhibit some differences from other instruments. For a six string guitar in the very largest chord-voicings it may be necessary to drop or omit one or more tones from the chord; this is typically the root or fifth. The layout of notes on the fretboard sometimes demands that the notes in a chord will not run in tonal order. It can make a possible chord which is composed of more than one note of exactly the same pitch. Many chords can be played with the same notes in more than one place on the fretboard.

Guitars can vary both in the number of strings and in tuning. Most guitars used in popular music have six strings and are tuned (from the lowest pitched string to the highest): E-A-D-G-B-E. The internal intervals present among adjacent strings in this tuning can be written 5-5-5-4-5 (with perfect fourth intervals except for one major thirdinterval between the G and the B). Conventionally, the string with the highest pitch (the thinnest) is called the first string, and the string having the lowest pitch is called the sixth.