Picker’s Guide Tools
Instrument Explorer
Diatonic
Borrowed / secondary
Click a fret cell to set a finger (1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → T → clear). Shift-click to add a cell to the barre (finger 1 across multiple strings at one fret). Click above the nut to toggle open / muted / blank. Right-click to clear a string.
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Chord-tone map for upright bass — one card per tone (root, 3rd, 5th, plus ♭7 for dominant chords). Each diagram shows every position of that note in first position across all four strings.
Diatonic 6ths walk up strings 1 + 3. Slide between these positions — 2-fret forward slants for the major 6ths, 1-fret forward for the minor 6ths — to play the scale in harmonized doubles.
Find any chord on your instrument
Pick a root (G, C, D…), pick a quality (major, minor, 7th, m7, sus4…), and the finder shows every voicing we have for that chord — open positions, alt-bass shapes, barres, slash chords — drawn on a real chord box with fingerings. Tap the play button on any voicing to hear it. These aren’t generic guitar-site grips: they’re the shapes bluegrass players actually use, like G with the B in the bass and the alt-bass C.
See the chords that belong to a key
Flip to Key mode, pick a key, and the finder lists its diatonic seven chords (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii°) plus a borrowed-chord row — the V7, the ♭VII, the secondary dominants that show up in bluegrass all the time. Tap any chord to jump straight to its voicings. It’s the fastest way to answer “what chords are in the key of B?” mid-jam.
Signature moves, per instrument
Each instrument gets a tab for the thing its players actually work on: chop voicings for mandolin, up-the-neck shapes for banjo, the 6ths walk for dobro, double stops for fiddle, chord tones for upright bass, and CAGED shapes, triads, and double stops for guitar. Scale positions are in there too for guitar, mandolin, and banjo.
Questions about the chord finder
What instruments does this chord finder cover?
Guitar, mandolin, banjo, dobro, fiddle, and upright bass — every common chord plus bluegrass-specific voicings (G with the B in the bass, alt-bass C, etc.). Each instrument gets its own signature-move tab: chop voicings for mandolin, up-the-neck shapes for banjo, the 6ths walk for dobro, double stops for fiddle, and chord tones for bass.
How does Chord mode work?
Pick a root (G, C, D…), pick a quality (major, minor, 7th, m7, sus4…), and the finder shows every voicing we have for that chord — open positions, alt-bass shapes, barres, slash chords. Tap the play button to hear it.
How does Key mode work?
Pick a key (G major, A major, etc.) and the finder lists the diatonic seven chords (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii°) plus a borrowed-chord row (V7, ♭VII, secondary dominants). Tap any chord to jump to its voicings.
Do I need an account to use it?
Not for the chord finder — it runs right on this page, desktop and mobile. An account is for the rest of Picker’s Guide: practicing any song at your own tempo and in your own key, chord charts and lyrics, playlists, and the whole catalog on your phone.
