Guitar chords for the songs you actually want to play

What are guitar chords?

A guitar chord is three or more notes played at once, and most songs you hear are built from a handful of them repeated in a pattern called a chord progression. Learn the eight open chords (C, D, E, G, A, Am, Em, Dm) and you can already play thousands of songs.

How do I find the guitar chords for a song?

The fastest way is to let software listen to the recording: paste the song's YouTube link into ChordGrab and it detects the chords from the audio, then shows them above the lyrics with a diagram for each one. Chord sites written by hand are a good second opinion but are often in the wrong key for the version you are watching.

What is a chord progression?

A chord progression is the order the chords come in, written as Roman numerals so it works in any key: I–V–vi–IV is G–D–Em–C in the key of G and C–G–Am–F in the key of C. That one progression alone covers hundreds of pop songs, which is why beginners are told to learn it first.

Which guitar chords should a beginner learn first?

Start with Em, Am, C, G and D, because they need at most three fingers and no barre, and most easy songs use only those. ChordGrab's beginner shapes feature picks a capo fret so that a song written with barre chords can be played with these open shapes instead.

How do I learn a song from a YouTube guitar tutorial?

Get the chords first, then use the tutorial for the strumming pattern and the changes you find hard. With the chord sheet open you can pause the video on a change, look at the diagram, and practise that one transition slowly before going back to the song.

Why do the chords I found not match the video?

Usually the player has a capo on, or is playing a cover in a different key from the original. If every chord is off by the same amount, nothing is wrong; you are looking at concert pitch while they are fingering shapes higher up the neck, and ChordGrab shows both.

Songs with chords on ChordGrab

• Wish You Were Here — Pink Floyd, the classic Em7 and G intro

Try it on a song you actually want to play

ChordGrab is free to start. Paste a YouTube link in the app and the chords come back in about a minute, with diagrams, transcribed lyrics and a play-along.