Guitar chords

About this page

This page gives some guitar chord charts for backing chords (without a capo!) for Irish/Scottish music, in standard tuning. I use all of these chords when backing. I'm fairly new to guitar (~1 year playing in sessions) so feel free to let me know if you have other chords!

These were mostly taken from Matt Heaton's excellent ‘Backer Corner’ YouTube series, as well as from observing other guitar players and from playing around myself.

Chord layout

Chords are arranged by key, since a given chord (e.g. G) is played differently depending what key the tune is in. Within each key are multiple sets (groups) of chords which are close to one another, so naturally fit well together. At the end are some movable chords.

Chords are loosely named — most chords contain multiple ‘colourful’ notes, usually the tonic (or in the tonic chord).

I use thumb quite a lot, both to mute and sound the lower strings. Many of these chords are very difficult to play without using the thumb.

Modes

This page mostly just contains chords for major and minor (where mixolydian chords appear, these are non-exhaustive). For mixolydian or dorian, the minor chords are played, with the following adjustments:

• Dorian raises the 6th, which affects chords ii° (now minor), iv (now major), and VI (now diminished). In practice, don't play the 6th chord any more, and play the IV chord from the major key.
• Mixolydian raises the 6th and 3rd, which compared to dorian affects chords i (now major), III (now diminished) and vi° (now minor). In practice, this is minor but take the I, IV and vi chord from the major key.