Chord diagrams

A chord diagram shows how a chord is fingered on the neck: the strings across, the frets down, a dot where each string is held, ○ for an open string and × for one not played. A chord symbol on a fretted part can carry its own diagram; where it has none, Stab draws a common guitar shape for the plainest chords. Diagrams appear over the chords in the Score, and big on the Stage’s Big Chord layout.

Chord diagrams

Available on every platform.

Editing a chord’s diagram

Click a chord symbol on a guitar or bass part, over its lanes or in the Chords row. A card opens at the lower right of the pane, with the chord’s name and its diagram, five frets of the neck, the lowest string on the left, as a chord chart draws it.

Add Diagram gives a chord without one a diagram, every string open. Remove takes it away, leaving the name alone.
From Notes writes the frets the part plays where the chord starts, string for string; the strings not played there are muted.
Click a fret to hold its string there. The same dot again mutes the string.
Click above the nut to turn a string from open to muted, and back.
▲ and ▼ move the five frets shown up and down the neck. Away from the nut, the first fret’s number is written beside it (“5fr”).
× puts the card away until you pick another chord.

In the tools tray the diagram is drawn finger-sized, each dot with its fret in it, and beside it the chord’s name, its fingering from the lowest string (“x 0 2 2 1 0”), ▲ and ▼ round the first fret’s number, From Notes, and No Diagram where the card says Remove.

Each change is one undo step. Renaming a chord keeps its diagram, and so does Name Chord from Notes. Chords on keys parts and on the Chords track have no diagram card.

Diagrams come in with the chords from Guitar Pro and MusicXML files, and Guitar Pro export keeps them.

Common shapes

Where a chord has no diagram of its own, Stab draws the usual guitar shape for major, minor, 7, m7, maj7, sus2 and sus4 chords on any root: the open shape where there is one (C, D, G, Am, E7…), else a barre on the low E or the A string, whichever is lower on the neck. Other chords, and slash chords, get no common shape.

The Chords track’s chords are drawn as a guitar’s. Where a part plays a chord of the same name at the same moment and has a diagram for it, that diagram is used.

In the Score

Diagrams in the Score are off at first. Turn on Chord diagrams over guitar chords in Score Setup’s Notation section (Score Setup): each chord symbol of a fretted part, from four strings to eight, is drawn as a diagram with its name over it, using its own diagram or, on a six-string guitar in standard tuning with no capo, a common shape, as on the Stage. In another tuning (drop D, DADGAD…) or with a capo, a chord without its own diagram has none drawn. The Chords track’s chords get theirs over the top staff.

On the Stage

The Stage’s Big Chord layout draws the chord sounding with how to play it under the name (The Stage):

the chord’s own diagram, when it has one;
else a common shape, for a chord on the Chords track or on a six-string guitar in standard tuning with no capo;
else a keyboard with the chord’s notes lit, the bass of a slash chord in a lighter shade.