Deciphering chord names

Understanding the names of guitar chords can sometimes be difficult. Beyond the names of basic chords there are some complex chords with long and complicated chord names. These “exotic” chords strike fear into the hearts of guitar players (both beginners and intermediates alike) because they seem complicated and hard to understand.

As a novice guitar player, once you are beyond playing open chords, some of the names (and sounds) of other chords can be scary and baffling.

“Why the hell is it called that?” you ask yourself.

Guitar chord names are perhaps confusing because so far you’ve learnt WHAT they are called and WHERE to play them but not WHY they are called what they are. (There’s no shame in this – as a self taught player myself, this was totally my experience also.)

As it happens, demystifying complex guitar chords is not that hard, if you know how to decode them – so let’s cover some basics then move on to helping you with decoding.

We don’t (always) mention everything when discussing chords

When we talk about major chords, for brevity we normally drop the “major” suffix and just say the letter name. So if I say: “Hey! Play an E.” I really mean, play an E major chord.

Also, musos may often omit the word “dominant” when talking about a dominant 7th chord, and just call them seventh chords, as in “Play me an A7”.

So that’s just a quick heads up.

How are guitar chords constructed?

Centuries ago, the fathers of western music decided on some pretty simple rules to make chords:

You need 3 notes to officially call it a chord (this was before Rock gave us 2 note power chords) These 3 note basic “building block” chords (my term) are the basis for all other more complex chords More complex chords are created by adding either 1, 2, 3 or 4 extra notes to the existing basic building block chords

Basic chord types

There are several types of basic “building block” chord, each with their own unique sound and quality. You probably know 2 of them already: Major and Minor.

There are 2 others – which are less important for beginners but become more relevant as you continue on your guitar journey. These are lesser known and certainly lesser used in popular music (although big in Jazz) but are worth at mentioning here: they are the Augmented and Diminished chords.

Basic chords types comprise of only 3 notes/pitches. This can be confusing at first because you know you’re playing more than 3 strings when playing chords but check and you’ll find that the other notes are just duplicates of these core 3.