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I'm trying to create guitar chord application but the chord chart for a single chord is too many. Listing all would take time and not efficient. For example, C major chord has variation such as the chart below

  • x 3 2 0 1 0
  • x 3 2 0 1 3
  • x 3 5 5 5 0
  • 8 10 10 9 8 8

Is there any way that the chart can be generated by with/without knowing the keys to create the chord? ie, CEG for chord C major.

Tuss
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    Unfortunately, because the fingerings on a fingerboard are not mathematically laid out (preference to length of fingers relative to placements must be considered), to have some sort of mathematical way to calculate where fingers will be placed will not always work. However, barcords CAN be mathematically written. For instance, the fingerings for Bb and B barcords are the same except that one is just one fret lower than the other. Knowing this would help in your issue, but I don't believe you will find any other way better than to just put all the fingerings in a dictionary and looking them up. – Rabbit Guy Jan 29 '16 at 17:06
  • Your third option is unplayable. It should be x35553. – user207421 Jan 29 '16 at 17:30
  • Copied it from a site. I thought the 0 is ok because it is key E. So, any thought on creating variation? – Tuss Jan 29 '16 at 17:33
  • I didn't say it was wrong, I said it was unplayable, and that's a good example of what @blahfunk told you, and therefore of why you can't generate mechanically. Another issue is that it gives you two adjacent E's, which is poor practice, especially as the kind of people who need chord symbols may not be all that good at tuning the instrument. If your objective is to provide all the possible variations you will just have to continue copying from a site, but find a better one. If you're annotating existing music you only need to provide one variation. – user207421 Jan 29 '16 at 17:56

2 Answers2

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Contrary to the comments I think this is possible. If you got all of the open chord shapes such as..

  • 0 2 2 1 0 0 (open E)
  • 0 0 2 2 2 0 (open A)
  • 0 3 2 0 1 0 (open C)
  • X 0 0 2 3 2 (open D)

Then you can shift them up using bar chords and you should be able to write code to calculate all the permutations for a particular chord. For example if you wanted all the C major triads (as in your question) you know one is

  • 0 3 2 0 1 0 (open C)

But you also know one of them is the open A shape above but shifted UP 3 frets...

  • 3 3 5 5 5 3 (open A shifted up as a bar chord)

This is your third chord in your question. You can also calculate where to shift the open E shape, which would be...

  • 8 10 10 7 8 8

Again, this is one of the chords in your question. This way you can calculate all the positions for any chord using code - providing you have a sufficient set of open chords that can be comfortably shifted up like this.

So your set of C chords using these initial open shapes would be...

C Chords...

  • 8 10 10 7 8 8

  • 3 3 5 5 5 3

  • 0 3 2 0 1 0

  • X 10 10 12 14 12

Now if you wanted to know the set of D chords you can actually calculate these by adding 2 to all the numbers above (two of them wrap around an octave but you can work this into a calculation)

D Chords...

  • 10 12 12 11 10 10

  • 5 5 7 7 7 5

  • 10 13 12 10 11 10

  • X 0 0 2 3 2

jcharlesworthuk
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  • It is possible to generate all the transpositions of transposable base chords, and nobody has said otherwise. It isn't possible to generate the base chords, such as the OP's examples, for the reasons stated in @bblahfunk's comment, and some of those are not transposable, e.g. x32013. – user207421 Jan 29 '16 at 18:24
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    True but I think the problem OP is having is that the chord chart for one chord is too many, and that is because he is including chords that can easily be calculated in his chord chart. In his original example, he only needed the first two bullet points for the chord of C – jcharlesworthuk Jan 29 '16 at 18:27
  • After a few reading, this maybe best explained by the CAGED system. Not sure but looks like it. – Tuss Jan 30 '16 at 00:22
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Have you ever seen the book called "Fret Logic"? It shows the mathematical logic of the guitar fretboard. There are also shortcut versions of most chords, such as the nice 3 string version used a lot in cross picking: x x x x 5 5 3 This is a shortened version the C chord in the A position, but it is used a lot.

Master Guitar
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