ToolsChord Library
Voicings up the neck

Chord Library

One chord, five places to play it. Pick a root and a flavor, and see every CAGED voicing laid out in order up the neck.

Reading a diagram

Strings run left to right from low E to high e, exactly as if the guitar were standing up in front of you. Dots are where your fingers go. A ringed dot is the root, the note the chord is named after. An × means don't play that string, and a small circle above the nut means play it open. The number on the right ("3fr") tells you which fret the diagram starts on, and a long pill across the strings is a barre.

Why five voicings?

These are the five CAGED forms, the same shapes and colors as the Fretboard Explorer. Every chord lives in all five places, and the cards are sorted by position so you can watch one chord climb the neck. Under each diagram you'll see the actual notes sounded and their role in the chord: R is the root, 3 the third, 5 the fifth, b7 the seventh, and so on.

How to use it

Learning a song and hating a chord change? Try the same chord in a different position; a nearer voicing often fixes the change. Playing with another guitarist? Grab a higher form so you're not stacked on the same frets. And if a full shape is a stretch, play just the strings your fingers can reach. Partial voicings are real voicings.

Root
Flavor
GMajor · five positions, low to high
GformGRB3D5GRB3GR
Open position
Eform3frGRD5GRB3D5GR
Frets 3 to 5
Dform5fr××GRD5GRB3
Frets 5 to 8
Cform7fr×GRB3D5GRB3
Frets 7 to 10
Aform10fr×GRD5GRB3D5
Frets 10 to 12

Same chord, climbing the neck. Notice how each form hands off to the next: the top of one voicing sits right where the next one begins. That chain is the whole CAGED system in action.