GUITARMONIZER : Free Guitar Chord Progressions & Voicings

Guitarmonizer is a free online chord progression generator, chord voicing generator, and chord chart maker for guitar. Build guitar chord progressions, find every voicing for any chord on any tuning, and export your progression as a downloadable chord chart. Choose a chord root and type, and Guitarmonizer maps every matching note across the fretboard - color-coded by chord part. Instead of memorizing thousands of chord shapes, you learn to see the patterns that connect them. Works with standard tuning, alternate tunings, and instruments with 4 to 9 strings. Toggle between note names and interval names to understand exactly how each chord is constructed.

How to Build Guitar Chord Progressions with Guitarmonizer

Choose Your Tuning

Set the number of strings (4-9), your lowest open string note, and your tuning intervals. Standard six-string guitar tuning is E with intervals 55545. Guitarmonizer supports any tuning configuration, making it one of the few alternate tuning chord finders available that lets you create your own custom chord voicings and guitar chord progressions - something most chord tools can't do.

If you play in drop D, open G, DADGAD, or any custom tuning, just enter the semitone intervals between each string. The entire fretboard recalculates instantly, and every chord progression you build adapts to the new tuning.

Select a Chord Root and Type

Choose any of the 12 chromatic notes as your chord root, then select a chord type. Guitarmonizer includes major triads, minor triads, augmented and diminished triads, sus2 and sus4 chords, sixth chords, seventh chords (major 7, minor 7, dominant 7, augmented 7, diminished 7, minor/major 7), ninth chords, and 6/9 chords. You can further customize chords by adding chord tones manually for complete control - useful for jazz chord progressions where extended and altered chord types are common.

Once you select a chord, every note on the fretboard that belongs to that chord lights up in color. Each chord part (root, third, fifth, seventh, and so on) gets its own color, so you can see the chord's structure across the entire neck at once.

Find Chord Voicings Across the Fretboard

This is where Guitarmonizer becomes a powerful chord voicing generator. With all the chord tones visible, you choose which notes to play and where. You're not limited to the five or six standard shapes from a chord book - you can find every possible voicing for any chord, anywhere on the neck.

Use the interval checkboxes to toggle chord parts on and off. Want to hear just the root and fifth? Uncheck the third. Want to add a ninth to a seventh chord? Check the 2 (ninth) checkbox. This is how chord extensions work in practice - you're adding intervals to a base chord structure. Jazz chord voicings use this exact approach to build the dense, colorful harmonies that drive jazz chord progressions.

Solo and Mute Strings to Build Your Voicing

Click any highlighted note to "solo" it - only that note will show on its string, clearing the others. Click an empty fret to mute the entire string. By soloing and muting every string, you build a clean picture of exactly which notes you're playing - and each saved voicing becomes a chord chart in your progression's export.

This is how professional guitarists think about chord voicings: not as fixed shapes to memorize, but as choices about which chord tones to include and where to play them. Spread voicings, drop 2 voicings, drop 3 voicings, close voicings - these are all just different ways of distributing the same chord tones across the strings. Guitarmonizer lets you discover them naturally instead of memorizing each one separately.

Switch Between Note Names and Interval Names

The Name/Interval toggle switches the fretboard display between showing note names (A, B, C, etc.) and interval names (R, b3, 5, b7, etc.). This is one of the most powerful learning features - it shows you how guitar chords are formed from intervals, not just which frets to press.

When you see that a minor chord is always Root, flat 3rd, and 5th regardless of which root note you choose, chord formulas stop being abstract theory. You start understanding how chords are constructed rather than just memorizing shapes. That understanding is what lets you build your own chords, find inversions, and create voicings no chord book ever showed you.

Build Chord Progressions and Export Chord Charts

Once you've built a voicing you like, hit Save Voicing to store it. Save several voicings in a row and you've built a chord progression. Guitarmonizer is a complete chord progression builder: edit any chord in the sequence, browse intelligent next-chord suggestions ranked by harmonic relationship, and explore voice-leading suggestions that connect your chosen voicings smoothly. When the progression is ready, use the Chord Chart export to generate a printable guitar chord chart showing each saved voicing as a standard fretboard diagram - downloadable as a PNG you can share, print, or paste into your notes. For a text-based format, use ASCII Tab to generate tab notation you can paste into any monospaced editor.

This makes Guitarmonizer a complete tool for songwriting - not just finding individual chords, but building, editing, and documenting complete guitar chord progressions with the exact voicings you want. You can also save your progression as a JSON file for later, or share it as a URL so others can open and edit your work.

Understanding Guitar Chords: Why You Don't Need to Memorize 1,000 Shapes

Traditional guitar education teaches chords as fixed shapes: put your fingers here for C major, here for G minor, here for Dmaj7. It works at first, but it doesn't scale. There are 12 root notes, dozens of chord types, and multiple voicings for each combination. And once you get into jazz chord voicings which have many more possible inversions, it begins to boggle the mind. Nobody can memorize all of them - and you don't have to.

Every chord is built from a formula. A major triad is always the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a major scale. A minor seventh chord is always 1, b3, 5, b7. Once you understand the formula, you can build any chord from any root note, in any position on the neck. That's what Guitarmonizer is designed to show you. Select a chord, switch to interval view, and you'll see the formula in action across the entire fretboard.

How Guitar Chord Voicings Work

A chord voicing is a specific arrangement of a chord's notes across the strings. The same C major chord (C, E, G) can be played in dozens of different positions on the guitar. Each voicing has a different sound and character, even though the note names are technically the same.

Open voicings spread the chord tones across a wide range. Close voicings stack them tightly. Drop 2 voicings take the second note from the top and move it down an octave. Inversions put a note other than the root in the bass. These aren't separate things to memorize - they're different ways of choosing which chord tones to play and where.

In Guitarmonizer, you can see all of these options at once, discover voicings by exploring the fretboard visually, and save each one as a chord chart in your progression. This is how jazz guitarists find interesting chord voicings, how session players choose voicings that fit an arrangement, and how songwriters find chords that sound good together. For example, it's common in jazz chord progressions to let the bass handle the root note, and for the guitar to play rootless chords. In Guitarmonizer, you simply uncheck the root note with the checkbox and they all disappear from the fretboard - so you are left with the full spread of only rootless inversions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a chord voicing?

A chord voicing is a specific arrangement of a chord's notes on an instrument. The same chord can be played in many different voicings by changing which octave each note is in, which strings are used, and which chord tones are doubled or omitted. Different voicings of the same chord sound different - some fuller, some thinner, some jazzy, some open. Choosing the right voicing is how guitarists make the same chord progression sound fresh in different contexts.

What is a chord chart?

A chord chart (or chord diagram) shows a chord's fingering as a small grid: vertical lines for strings, horizontal lines for frets, and dots showing where to place your fingers. An X above a string means mute it, an O means play it open. Chord charts are the standard way guitar instruction communicates chord shapes - every chord book, song sheet, and online tab site uses them. Guitarmonizer generates a chord chart for every saved voicing in your progression, downloadable as a single PNG, and it works for any chord in any tuning across 4 to 9 strings.

What are common chord progressions on guitar?

Some of the most common chord progressions in popular music are I-V-vi-IV (used in countless pop and rock songs), I-vi-IV-V (the doo-wop progression), ii-V-I (the foundation of jazz chord progressions), 12-bar blues (I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-V-IV-I-I), and the descending I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV-V. Roman numerals describe the function of each chord in the key, so the same progression can be played in any key. Guitarmonizer's chord suggester ranks your next chord by harmonic relationship, surfacing both common diatonic progressions and more interesting chromatic options like Tonnetz neighbors and negative harmony substitutions.

What are jazz chord progressions?

Jazz chord progressions typically use extended seventh chords (7, 9, 11, 13), altered dominants, and substitutions like the tritone substitution and the ii-V-I. The most common jazz progression is the ii-V-I, which appears in countless jazz standards. Jazz also leans heavily on modal interchange, secondary dominants, and chromatic mediant movement to create rich harmonic motion. Guitarmonizer supports all of these moves - including symmetric pivots (diminished 7 and augmented chords as multi-destination connectors) - making it a practical tool for exploring and building jazz chord progressions on guitar.

How many guitar chords are there?

Technically, thousands. With 12 root notes and dozens of chord types (major, minor, diminished, augmented, sevenths, ninths, sus chords, and more) the combinations add up quickly. When you factor in different voicings for each chord, the number becomes enormous. But you don't need to memorize them all. Every chord is built from a formula of intervals. Learn the formulas and you can build any chord from any root note. That's the approach Guitarmonizer is built around.

Can I build chord progressions in alternate tunings?

Yes. Guitarmonizer supports any tuning on any number of strings from 4 to 9. Set your lowest open string note and enter the semitone intervals between each string. Standard guitar tuning is E with intervals 55545. Drop D is D with 75545. Open G is D with 55525. DADGAD is D with 72025. The fretboard recalculates instantly for whatever tuning you enter, and you can build complete chord progressions in any tuning - making it one of the few guitar chord progression builders that works beyond standard tuning. The chord chart export adapts to your tuning too, so every diagram you download reflects the strings and intervals you actually play.

What's the difference between note names and interval names?

Note names (A, B, C, D, E, F, G and their sharps/flats) tell you the specific pitch. Interval names (R, b3, 5, b7, etc.) tell you the relationship between a note and the chord's root. Intervals are how chord formulas work: a major chord is always Root, 3, 5 regardless of which root you choose. Guitarmonizer's note/interval toggle lets you see either one, helping you understand how chords are constructed from intervals rather than just memorizing positions.

What are chord inversions?

A chord inversion puts a note other than the root in the bass (lowest position). A C major chord in root position has C as the lowest note. First inversion puts E in the bass. Second inversion puts G in the bass. Inversions change the chord's sound and character without changing which notes are in the chord. In Guitarmonizer, you can build inversions by soloing a non-root note on the lowest sounding string and choosing different chord tones on the higher strings.

What are chord extensions?

Chord extensions add notes beyond the basic triad. A seventh chord adds the 7th interval. A ninth chord adds the 9th (which is the same as the 2nd, an octave up). Extensions give chords more color, richness, and complexity - this is how you make chords sound jazzy or more interesting. In Guitarmonizer, you can add or remove any interval using the checkboxes, letting you experiment with extensions in real time as you build chord progressions.

Why do my chords sound bad?

The most common reasons guitar chords sound bad: fingers aren't pressing firmly enough (causing buzzing), fingers are touching adjacent strings (muting notes that should ring), or the voicing itself has notes that clash. That last one is a voicing problem, not a technique problem. Some note combinations create dissonance (vibration that doesn't align) depending on how close together they are on the neck. Guitarmonizer can help - by seeing every chord tone across the fretboard, you can find voicings where the notes are spaced in ways that sound clean and musical.

How do I stop playing the same chords every time?

Most guitarists get stuck because they only know chords in one position - usually open chords or a few barre chord shapes. The fretboard is much bigger than that. Guitarmonizer shows you every place a chord can be played, across the entire neck. Try playing the same progression with different voicings: move a C major from the open position to the 8th fret, spread the notes across more strings, or use an inversion with E in the bass. Same notes, completely different sound. The chord progression builder also surfaces suggested next chords ranked by harmonic relationship, helping you break out of overused diatonic patterns and discover fresh chord progressions.

Is Guitarmonizer free?

Yes, Guitarmonizer is completely free to use with no account required. There's an email ask the first time you download a progression file per browser, but you can leave the subscription box unchecked if you don't want to hear from us. If the tool is helpful to you, share it with your friends. Guitarmonizer is made by Fine Increments, a boutique music software company.