Chords for Traditional Music

GDAE Chords

These chord shapes work equally for banjolin, mandolin banjo, octave mandola, gdae tuned bouzouki and gdae tuned tenor banjo.

The menu to the left will take you through a series of pages which gently explain how chords work and what comprises each chord, starting with two note chords (diads) through three note chords (triads such as major and minor) up to more advanced chords such as augmenteds and diminisheds.

Click on a chord letter above to show you the table of notes and some easy chord diagrams for the family of chords (major, minor, seventh and modal).

The bar will be just above each page in this section, so you can go to it any time.

You will see a table of the notes for the scale starting on that note (the Tonic). After each table are the chord shapes for the basic chords - 5th, Major, Seventh and Minor. The 1st, 3rd and 5th notes will be highlighted. These three notes are the most important for chord formation. See How to to see how other chords are formed or 'Intervals' to see a gentle explanation of chord formation.

Example

The table for C chords shows all the notes in the scale of C, starting with the root (1) and going up to octave (8)

The Major Chord is the 1st, 3rd and 5th note (C, E and G) which are highlighted.

Click on a chord letter above to show you the table of notes and some easy chord diagrams for the family of chords (major, minor, seventh and modal).

ADAD Chords

The bouzouki is often tuned differently to take advantage of the 5th chords, which are sometimes called 'modal' chords. The Octave Mandola can also be retuned to a similar effect. The commonest (easiest) tuning is ADAD which is an open D5th - sometimes referred to as 'Modal D'.