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Find playable jazz guitar voicings for any chord. Explore shell, drop 2, drop 3, rootless and extended voicings on the fretboard — every shape generated and checked, not copied from a chart.
Any jazz chord symbol: Cmaj7, Dm9, G13, F#m7b5, Bb7alt, Ebm6, A7#11, Dsus4.
This is the part that matters. Anyone can hand you three chord shapes; the question is which three, and why those three connect. Give the tool a progression and it searches for the set of voicings that moves the least from one chord to the next — then tells you which notes stayed put, which moved a semitone, and where the third of one chord turned into the seventh of the following one.
It answers three times, not once: the chain with the bass on the 6th string, then the 5th, then the 4th. That is the shape the question really has. A guitarist working out how to play a ii-V-I is not choosing among every voicing at once; they are choosing a region of the neck, and then the best chain inside it. Each of the three runs is voice-led on its own, so the 4th-string chain is the smoothest chain that exists with the bass on the 4th string — not the 6th-string one moved sideways.
Two chords or more, separated by spaces or by |. The tool picks the shapes that move the least between one chord and the next.
This tool hands you the shapes. It does not tell you which one to play behind a soloist, or what that choice does to the person listening — which is the whole subject of Jazz Guitar Comping.
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Project 04 · Jazz guitar
Project 03 · Harmony
Project 05 · Harmony
Here is what the tool returns for Dm7 | G7 | Cmaj7 in C major — the single most common progression a jazz guitarist will ever play. Once for each string the bass can sit on, because that is the choice you actually make. These shapes were chosen because they connect, not because they are the easiest to hold.
A drop 3 on strings 6-4-3-2: the third voice from the top drops an octave, which opens a gap in the middle — the skipped string is muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register clear, so this shape holds up with C in the bass better than a drop 2 would down here.
A drop 3 on strings 6-4-3-2: the third voice from the top drops an octave, which opens a gap in the middle — the skipped string is muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register clear, so this shape holds up with B in the bass better than a drop 2 would down here.
A drop 3 on strings 6-4-3-2: the third voice from the top drops an octave, which opens a gap in the middle — the skipped string is muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register clear, so this shape holds up with B in the bass better than a drop 2 would down here.
| Chord | Frets (low to high) | Notes | Intervals | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dm7 | 8 x 7 7 6 x | C A D F | b7 5 1 b3 | Drop 3 |
| G7 | 7 x 5 7 6 x | B G D F | 3 1 5 b7 | Drop 3 |
| Cmaj7 | 7 x 5 5 5 x | B G C E | 7 5 1 3 | Drop 3 |
Between Dm7 and G7 the notes D, F are common to both chords, and 2 of them stay on exactly the same fret. The F — the third of the first chord — becomes the F, the seventh of the next. Third to seventh, seventh to third: this is the alternation a cycle of fourths is built out of. Everything else moves 3 semitones in total.
Between G7 and Cmaj7 the notes G, B are common to both chords, and 2 of them stay on exactly the same fret. The B — the third of the first chord — becomes the B, the seventh of the next. Third to seventh, seventh to third: this is the alternation a cycle of fourths is built out of. Everything else moves 3 semitones in total.
A drop 3 on strings 5-3-2-1: the third voice from the top drops an octave, which opens a gap in the middle — the skipped string is muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register clear, so this shape holds up with C in the bass better than a drop 2 would down here.
A drop 3 on strings 5-3-2-1: the third voice from the top drops an octave, which opens a gap in the middle — the skipped string is muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register clear, so this shape holds up with B in the bass better than a drop 2 would down here.
A drop 3 on strings 5-3-2-1: the third voice from the top drops an octave, which opens a gap in the middle — the skipped string is muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register clear, so this shape holds up with B in the bass better than a drop 2 would down here.
| Chord | Frets (low to high) | Notes | Intervals | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dm7 | x 3 x 2 3 1 | C A D F | b7 5 1 b3 | Drop 3 |
| G7 | x 2 x 0 3 1 | B G D F | 3 1 5 b7 | Drop 3 |
| Cmaj7 | x 2 x 0 1 0 | B G C E | 7 5 1 3 | Drop 3 |
Between Dm7 and G7 the notes D, F are common to both chords, and 2 of them stay on exactly the same fret. The F — the third of the first chord — becomes the F, the seventh of the next. Third to seventh, seventh to third: this is the alternation a cycle of fourths is built out of. Everything else moves 3 semitones in total.
Between G7 and Cmaj7 the notes G, B are common to both chords, and 2 of them stay on exactly the same fret. The B — the third of the first chord — becomes the B, the seventh of the next. Third to seventh, seventh to third: this is the alternation a cycle of fourths is built out of. Everything else moves 3 semitones in total.
A drop 2 on strings 4-3-2-1: take the chord in close position and lower the second voice from the top by an octave, and this is the shape that falls out. Four notes on four adjacent strings, with A in the bass. It is the workhorse grip of jazz guitar comping because the voices stay close enough to move a fret or two into the next chord.
A drop 2 on strings 4-3-2-1: take the chord in close position and lower the second voice from the top by an octave, and this is the shape that falls out. Four notes on four adjacent strings, with G in the bass. It is the workhorse grip of jazz guitar comping because the voices stay close enough to move a fret or two into the next chord.
A drop 2 on strings 4-3-2-1: take the chord in close position and lower the second voice from the top by an octave, and this is the shape that falls out. Four notes on four adjacent strings, with G in the bass. It is the workhorse grip of jazz guitar comping because the voices stay close enough to move a fret or two into the next chord.
| Chord | Frets (low to high) | Notes | Intervals | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dm7 | x x 7 7 6 8 | A D F C | 5 1 b3 b7 | Drop 2 |
| G7 | x x 5 7 6 7 | G D F B | 1 5 b7 3 | Drop 2, Basic |
| Cmaj7 | x x 5 5 5 7 | G C E B | 5 1 3 7 | Drop 2 |
Between Dm7 and G7 the notes D, F are common to both chords, and 2 of them stay on exactly the same fret. The F — the third of the first chord — becomes the F, the seventh of the next. Third to seventh, seventh to third: this is the alternation a cycle of fourths is built out of. Everything else moves 3 semitones in total.
Between G7 and Cmaj7 the notes G, B are common to both chords, and 2 of them stay on exactly the same fret. The B — the third of the first chord — becomes the B, the seventh of the next. Third to seventh, seventh to third: this is the alternation a cycle of fourths is built out of. Everything else moves 3 semitones in total.
Four words get used as if they meant the same thing, and they do not. A chord is a set of notes. A chord symbol is the name written above the staff — Cmaj7 — which tells you the set but nothing about how to play it. A voicing is one particular arrangement of some of those notes: which ones you use, in which octave, in which order from the bottom up. A shape is the grip your hand makes to produce that voicing on this instrument.
The distinction matters because the chord symbol is the least interesting part. Two voicings of the same symbol can sound like different chords: put the seventh in the bass and the chord leans somewhere; put the third on top and the melody changes. Almost every decision a comping guitarist makes is a decision about voicing, not about chords.
This tool never stores a shape. It builds each voicing from the chord — close position, then the transformation, then the strings — and checks the result before showing it. That is why a voicing here is only called a drop 2 when it really is one, and only called rootless when the root really is absent.
Root, third and seventh. Three notes that say everything the chord symbol says, and nothing it does not.
Read →The workhorse of comping: four notes on four adjacent strings, derived by one specific operation.
Read →Leave out the note the bass player is already playing, and use the string for something that adds colour.
Read →A drop 3 lowers the third voice from the top instead of the second, which opens a gap in the middle of the shape — the skipped string gets muted. The wider spacing keeps the low register from turning muddy, so drop 3 is what you reach for when the root is on the sixth string. A quartal voicing abandons thirds altogether and stacks fourths; it belongs to the chord without spelling it out, which is why it sounds open and modern and slightly non-committal.
The tool ranks its results, but the ranking cannot know what you are playing over. Five things decide it, and only the first is about the chord:
A chord shape on its own is a fact. Two chord shapes in a row are a sentence, and voice leading is its grammar. The reason a ii-V-I sounds inevitable on the guitar has almost nothing to do with the three shapes being good shapes, and almost everything to do with what happens between them: the seventh of the ii chord becomes the third of the V, the third of the V becomes the seventh of the I, and the hand barely moves.
That alternation — third to seventh, seventh to third — is what the progression search above is looking for. It is also the reason to learn shapes in families rather than one at a time: a drop 2 on the middle four strings connects to another drop 2 on the middle four strings, and learning both halves of the pair is worth more than learning ten unrelated grips.
Paste a progression and see the key, the Roman numerals and the function of every chord.
Open →The chords of a hundred tunes, analysed — and every one of them can be sent to this page.
Browse →The eight families every standard is assembled from.
Read →Where all those extra dominant chords in a standard come from.
Read →