Random Guitar Chord Generator

Draw a random guitar chord from 118 real voicings in standard tuning, each with a proper chord box showing frets, fingering, and which strings to leave out.

How do you read a guitar chord diagram?

A chord box is the fretboard seen head-on: the six vertical lines are the strings, low E on the left, and the horizontal lines are the frets. A thick bar across the top is the nut, meaning the shape sits at the first fret; a number beside the box instead means the diagram starts further up the neck. Dots show where fingers press, numbered 1 to 4 from index to little finger, and a long rounded bar is one finger flattened across several strings. Above the box, an o marks a string played open and an x one you don't sound at all.

About this generator

This generator draws from 118 real chord voicings in standard tuning, across Open Chords, Barre Chords, Seventh & Jazz Voicings, Extended & Altered, and Power & Movable Shapes. Every draw comes with a proper chord box -- fret positions, fingering, open and muted strings, and the bass note the voicing actually sounds. The movable shapes are expanded from a single template across roots, so a barre form is correct by construction rather than by transcription.

Every result here is drawn using crypto.getRandomValues() -- the Web Crypto API's cryptographically secure randomness -- instead of Math.random(), so it's genuinely unpredictable, not just statistically random. Learn more.

What people use it for

Practise by drawing a chord and finding it without looking anything up, build a random progression by drawing four in a row, break out of the five shapes you always use, or learn the movable forms by seeing the same shape land on different roots. Filter to Extended & Altered when the open chords have stopped teaching you anything.

How it works

Generate draws one voicing at random using the site's cryptographically secure randomness, never repeating the chord currently shown in single-result mode, and renders it as a standard chord box. Every voicing in the pool is checked against its own name by a script that works out the pitch classes it sounds and compares them to the chord the name claims -- so a fret typed one off fails the build rather than shipping.

What's inside

A sample of what this generator can draw, spread evenly across the full list:

Common questions

What tuning are these for?

Standard tuning, E A D G B e, low to high. Nothing here assumes a capo, drop tuning, or a seven-string.

What do the numbers in the dots mean?

Which finger to use: 1 is the index, 2 the middle, 3 the ring, 4 the little finger. They're a strong suggestion rather than a law -- experienced players often re-finger a shape to make the next chord easier to reach.

Why do some diagrams have a number beside them?

That's the fret the top of the box represents. Without it, a barre chord at the eighth fret would look identical to one at the first, which is the single most common way of learning a chord in the wrong place.

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