Guitar chords
The chords Strumhold teaches, in the order the app unlocks them: the open sets first, then the barre chords, until every key has a major and a minor chord. Every chart shows the exact fingering the app drills. Pick a chord to see how to play it and which changes to practice it in.
Two of these already under your fingers? Take them to the chord change test and see how many changes you can land on the beat.
Open Majors
The bright, sturdy chords most songs are built on. These five open shapes carry campfire strumming, folk, and a huge share of pop, and they are where nearly every guitarist starts.
Open Minors
The moodier side of the same neighborhood. Minor chords bring the melancholy in everything from folk ballads to rock anthems, and these open shapes sit right beside the majors you already know.
Open 7ths
Restless chords with a bluesy pull. A 7th always sounds like it wants to move somewhere, which is why blues, country, and early rock and roll lean on these shapes so hard.
Open Minor 7ths
Minor chords with the edges rounded off. Smooth and mellow, they turn up in soul, bossa nova, and anywhere a plain minor feels too heavy.
Open Major 7ths
Dreamy, floating chords that soften a major without turning it sad. Lo-fi and gentle pop are full of them, and songwriters reach for one whenever a plain major feels too cheerful.
E-shape Barres
Your first barre chords: one finger lies flat across all six strings and the familiar E shapes form behind it. This is the hardest thing your fretting hand has learned yet. The reward is the whole neck, because the same grip slid up to any fret is another chord.
A-shape Barres
Your second barre grip: the index lies across five strings and the familiar A shapes form behind it, with the low E string left out of the strum. It starts on B minor, the chord that pulls most players past the open shapes. Together with the E-shape grip it gives you two places to play every major and minor chord, so there is always one within easy reach of where your hand sits.
Barres in Every Key
The last eight major and minor barre chords, and not one new grip: every chord here is the E-shape or A-shape barre you already play, slid to a new fret. E♭ opens the set and F minor closes it, saved for last because barres fight hardest right against the nut. After these, every major and minor chord a song can ask for is under your fingers.