14 August 2025
Advanced Guide to Chords — Chord Building Chart
A Chord is a fundamental building block of music and is commonly used in various musical styles and genres. Chords provide harmony and support for melodies, creating a rich and textured sound.
Chords are typically constructed by stacking notes on top of each other, based on specific intervals. The most common type of chord is the triad, which consists of three notes. Traditional triads are formed by stacking two intervals of a third (a distance of two whole steps or four half steps) on top of a root note. In music theory this harmony/chords i thirds is called Tertiary Harmony .
Traditional three-note chords are called a triad. Two notes are an interval, or dyad. Chords with four notes are a tetra-chord or 4-part chord; six notes are a hexachord, etc. These chords built in thirds (triads) are the the ONLY chords with traditional names: major, minor, diminished, and augmented. Chords beyond the triads - 4-part, 5-part, 6-part and, 7-part chords are still based on theses triads and they traditional names.
These traditional triads, built in thirds, are the only chords that have traditionally been named with a capital letter and chord type information. All traditional names are based on these four types: Major, Minor, Diminished, and Augmented. Each chord type has a distinctive sound and emotional quality. NOTE: there is NO Dominant
chord type — dominant is a harmonic function and NOT a chord name.
Every chord can be given a specific name based on the notes that constitute the chord and the distances or intervals between the notes. As well as a Chord's Harmonic Function
within a specific tonality or chord progression. It's actually this harmonic function that determines the name of the chord.
This Harmonic Function
is a critical part of a chord, and once and only once you determine the chord's, harmonic function can you successfully go about Naming Chords
. A chord shape can have many possible names, but only one name at a time in the current harmonic context. Once the correct name is determined, you can then actually get the correct Chord Spelling — the actual note names of the individual notes of the chord.
Chords can be built using any interval. With chords built in thirds thirds having a traditional notation, Quartal chords are wide open the what you might run into. I (Curt), checked with ChatGPT to see what has been used. It cam back with a bunch of crazy naming, none I would ever recommend. For years I would use Q
to indicate a chord built in fourths and the number of notes. Examples CQ3, would be a C root with three notes using fourths to build the chord.
An example of using fourths in songs is (wikiwand) McCoy Tyner on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue album and the song So What. On my Midnight at the Jazz Cafe the into to There Will Never Be Another You is in fourths.
Here's what ChatGPT said about my recommendation to use Q
as a notation device: While CQ3 is not currently a standard notation, it has the potential to be a useful and clear way to notate quartal chords. Promoting its use in relevant musical contexts could help it gain recognition and acceptance.
. Thanks to Chuck Anderson for what we came up with late last century.
JazzChords, and Free-form Chords.
Jazz” ChordsThese contemporary 4-part chords find their way into a wide variety of music. This is a massive category where you really start to learn how chord construction works and can create any — Yes — ANY chord you run across.
- View the Basic Open Position Chords for C Tuning lesson.
- View the A Ukulele Chord a Day Lesson Series .
Basic Open Positionchords, these 20 plus ukulele chord lessons cover the open position forms and their movable forms. This allows you to play basic chords in ANY key.
- View the Movable Form Chords Lesson Series
Jazz Chords,Chords
Jazz Chords,find their way into a wide range of traditional and contemporary music. They form the foundation for building those chords with the wacky names such as 13-9, #11, 9b5, etc.
- View the Core Chords — The
Big Six
lesson.
- View The Dominant Seventh Chord lesson.
Simply put, a chord progression is a sequence of chords. Songs are chord progressions with melodies and lyrics added.
- (wikiwand); Chord Progressions
- (wikiwand); List of Chord Progressions
Turns out there are a lot of common chord sequences that make learning a lot of songs easier. Checkout the LearningUkulele.com lessons below.
- Simple Progressions
- Three Chord Progressions
- Four Chord Pop Progressions
- Blues Progressions
- 50’s Chord Progressions
- Andalusian Chord Progression
- Mixolydian Progression ( I – bVII – IV )
- Backdoor Chord Progression
- Sears Roebuck* bridge —
I Got Rhythm
II7 VI7 II7 V7 . Often each 7th chord is proceeded with what would be its II chord. Here is an examples in the Key of C: E7 A7 D7 G7 . Notice this goes right around the Cycle of 4ths. - Montgomery-Ward* bridge — The bridge of Satin Doll is a classic Montgomery-Ward bridge.
* Sears Roebuck & Montgomery Ward were super common catalog and retail companies in the USA that the old jazzers attached those names to these very common chord progressions that show up a lot. A shorthand way to call a tune.
Without knowing where you are musically I would simply recommend to head over the Songs section, pick a song and learn the chords.
Here are a few really simple ones without a lot of chords that you might passively know:
If you're going to learn more than one song, it's probably a good idea to organize and create a chord vocabulary for learning songs beyond that first song.
Organizing ukulele chords can be done in several ways to make them more accessible and easier to navigate. Here are a few methods you can use to organize ukulele chords:
- Pick a Song: Pick a song and learn the chords used in that song. Repeat the proccess for the next song, the next song, the next song,...
- Alphabetically: Arrange the chords in alphabetical order. This method allows you to quickly find chords based on their names.
- Key-based: Group the chords based on their respective keys. For example, gather all the chords in the Key of C together, then group chords in the Key of G , and so on. This organization can help you understand the chord progressions within each key. This is a great way if you are learning the Ukulele using songs.
- Chord Types*: You can organize your chords into these four categories (see above): Open Position Chords , Movable Form Chords , 4-part
Jazz
Chords , and Free-form Chords . This aligns with the next possibility. - Music Genre: Organize chords based on the musical genre they are commonly used in. For example, group chords commonly used in folk music, Blues , pop music, country, or Jazz . This organization can help you explore different styles and find chords that suit your preferred genres.
- Common Chord Progressions: Organize chords based on common chord progressions. Group chords that are frequently used together in specific progressions, like I-IV-V or II-V-I . This organization helps you understand and memorize common harmonic patterns. This is the harmonic content of songs. And, pretty much everyone getting into playing and learning ukulele want, to play songs.
- Personalized System: Create your own system of organizing chords based on your preferences and learning style. You can categorize them by chord types (major, minor), chord extensions (7th, 9th, 13th), or any other criteria that makes sense to you.
for Right Handed Players
for Left Handed Players
Basic Open Positions Chords - C Tuning in the common keys of C, G, D, A, and E - with seventh chords in all keys. Includes diminished and augmented chords.
Download FREE ChartThese charts are available in the Books section of the site by clicking on the buttons below the charts.
The following two charts are for C Tuning and organized by the common chords that show up in common keys.
These charts are FREE downloads and available in right hand and left hand versions.
Basic Open Positions Chords for Lefties - C Tuning in the common keys of C, G, D, A, and E - with seventh chords in all keys. Includes diminished and augmented chords.
Download FREE Chartfor Baritone Players
Core Seventh Chords – C Tuning
Basic Open Position `Ukulele Chord Chart - Baritone/G Tuning in the common keys of C, G, D, A, and E – with seventh chords in all keys. Includes diminished and augmented chords.
Download FREE ChartThese charts are available in the Books section of the site by clicking on the buttons below the charts.
Core Ukulele Chords - Sevenths • These chords are movable chord forms based on core 4-part seventh chords and triads with duplicated and/or omitted notes.
Download FREE ChartAll Additional Reference Charts are Available on the Books Page .
Checkout the Lessons' section as the majority of lesson are regarding chords and chord progressions.
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