Memorizing guitar chords is an essential skill for any guitarist. It allows you to play songs more smoothly and confidently, and to improvise and create your own music.

This guide gives you practical ways to memorize guitar chords more effectively so you can recall the shapes with less hesitation as you play.

Let’s get right into it.

Visualizing chord shapes for memorization

Before we get better at memorizing new chords, we need to master some essential chords that will give us a foundation for learning other chords across the fretboard.

To review some of the essential chords, you’ll see how we can visualize patterns for easier memorization. For example:

For an A Major chord, you can think of the phrase ‘straight A’s’ to remember that all of the fretted notes are on the same fret.

For a D Major chord, you can think of the shape of the letter for this chord. The three notes are spread out in a triangular like shape like this:

For a C Major chord, the shape makes me think of a staircase because the notes are laid out diagonally. In short, use any visual or phrase to remember a chord, whatever works best for you.

For some essential chords, it’s not as easy to define a strategy for visualization, so simply try to remember the shape, how many fingers your use, or how many times you play notes on a specific fret.

Here is another essential chord which we’ll use as a foundation for other concepts later in this lesson.

If you need to, feel free to review the first chords you should learn on guitar.

Adjusting for Major and minor chords

The key to adjusting for Major or minor chords is by knowing where the 3rd of the chord is! The 3rd of the chord defines a Major or minor chord quality.

The scale degrees 1, 3, and 5 make up a Major chord while 1, flat 3, and 5 make up a minor chord. Essentially, the 3rd of a chord is lowered by a half step to make up a minor chord.

For example, an E Major chord has the notes, E, G# (sharp), and B while an E minor chord has the notes E, G (natural), and B.

The key is to be able to locate that third scale degree in your chord shape. For example, notice that for the E, A, and D chords, the 3rd of the chord is on the last fretted note indicated in green.

To play these chords as minor, all we have to do is move the 3rd degree by a half step down.

Note that some fingerings for minor chords get rearranged so that it’s more comfortable to play.

Here is what these changes look like for each chord below.

Understand how chords are movable shapes

Once you have the essential chords down, we’re going to look at how we can move these shapes to play other chords across the fretboard.

We can shift chord shapes by using a barre chord, meaning you use one finger to cover multiple strings.

For example, see how the E and A chords can be shifted to other root notes by using a barre. Note that your fingers get rearranged when adding a barre, but the chord shape remains the same.

The chord charts below show the same chord shapes circled in orange.

Major barre chord shape 6th string

Minor barre chord shape 6th string

Major barre chord shape 5th string

Minor barre chord shape 5th string

Understanding this concept of movable chord shapes is the basis of where barre chords come from.

You can also review 5 tips to get better at playing barre chords if you are still having difficulty playing these chords.

Get the chart here!

Easily look up guitar chords with the Essential Guitar Chords Chart!

This chart covers how to play:

• Major chords
• Minor chords
• Major 7 chords
• Minor 7 chords
• Dominant chords
• Half diminished chords
• Diminished chords
• Chords starting on all (12) root notes
• Over 80+ chords!

👉 Get it here!

Go deeper: Shifting other chord qualities

Once you’re comfortable with the Major and minor shapes you’ve already learned, the same movable-shape idea can be applied to other chord types later on. For example, 7th chords can also be moved to different root notes across the fretboard.

At first, you have to learn the specific shape of the chord but then you can play the same shape throughout the same string, starting on different root notes.

Here is an example of shifting a minor 7th chord shape across the 5th string to play different chords.

Know where the same notes repeat on the fretboard

By knowing which notes are in the middle of your fretboard, it’s much easier to find other chords throughout the fretboard.

We can think of these notes as our anchor points to shift to a specific chord, especially on the 6th and 5th string where many chords are often played.

To visualize this, see how the E and A notes repeat on the 6th and 5th string.

The open 5th string is an A note which is repeated on the 6th string, 5th fret and the open 6th string is an E note which is repeated on the 5th string, 7th fret.

If you know where these anchor points are, you can simply shift a chord shape relative to where those notes are on the lower strings.

If you still need help learning the notes on the fretboard, I recommend reviewing 7 tips to learn all of the notes on the guitar.

Chord chart memorization game

A simple way to strengthen your chord memory is to choose four chords you already want to know well and write them on these printable blank chord charts. Four is enough for one practice round. The goal is accurate recall, not seeing how many chords you can cram into one session.

Taking the time to write these chords down will help you memorize the chord shapes better and gives you a reference to review them later on.

For example, your chords practice game could look something like this:

After writing and playing each chord, flip the page and write the same 4 chord names down. Now, test your memory and try to recall each chord. Flip the page again when you’re ready to check your answer. Try not to glance at the other chords though! 🙂

You could play this kind of memorization game as a warmup to your practice sessions. I talk more about how to practice different music concepts in the 7 minute guitar practice routine.

Bonus tips for memorizing chords

• Find a time to learn when you are relaxed and mentally calm. I think the more tense or anxious you are, the less likely you are to remember new information.
• Consistency is key. Learning anything new simply takes repetition for it to become natural to you.
• Be patient with yourself. You may feel like you’re not improving but once you look back after a couple of months of playing, you’ll realize that you’re able to play things on your instrument that you couldn’t do before.
  

Wrapping up

Chord memorization gets easier when you connect the shape to something you already understand. You can visualize the fingering, notice how Major and minor shapes relate, use familiar root notes to move shapes around the fretboard, and regularly test yourself without looking at a chart.

You don’t need a huge chord vocabulary for this to work. Start with a few useful chords and practice recalling them until your fingers can find the shapes with less hesitation.

The memorization game above is an easy way to keep building this skill. Write a few chords, play them, hide the answers, and see what you can recall. Regular short reviews will do more for your memory than trying to learn too many shapes at once.

If you want to expand your chord vocabulary, here are some suggestions:

• 6 different ways of playing a Major chord
• Spread triad chords on guitar
• Essential 7th chords on guitar
• Chord inversions on guitar
  
  

📘 Get the free Practice Blueprint: Build better habits and make your progress more consistent. Download the free guide →