Mandolin Trainer Chords
Mandolin chords
Every mandolin chord on this page is one you can put under a tune tonight: the core majors first, then the minors, then the dominant sevenths. The grids read the way a chord chart always has, nut at the top and strings running down the page low to high, G D A E. Four of the seven core shapes are closed, which means they have no open strings holding them where they are, and a closed shape slides. Learn the A and you have not learned one chord, you have learned twelve.
The chord chart
Numbers under each grid are the frets, low string to high. A number in parentheses is a string you add when your hand allows it: it doubles a note the shape already has, so the chord is whole without it. Print it and the whole chart comes out, all three groups.
Core mandolin chords
The seven a beginner needs first. The first three ring against open strings, and the rest are closed shapes that move.
Minor mandolin chords
Low shapes for the five minors that turn up most. Every one of them is a major with its third dropped a fret and nothing else touched.
Seventh mandolin chords
A dominant seventh has four notes and this instrument has four courses, but the ones that fit a hand give a note up. Some of these keep the root, and some keep the fifth and the third and let the root go: that is a shell, and it is what a mandolin plays behind a fiddle anyway.
A filled dot is a finger. A hollow dot, and a number in parentheses, is the string you add when your hand allows it. An o above the nut is an open string, and a dashed o is an open string you can leave out. An x is a string this shape does not play.
A chart cannot hear you
A diagram shows you where the fingers go and stops there. Mandolin Trainer listens through your microphone, hears which notes of the chord are sounding, and names the string that should be carrying a note it cannot hear. The Chord Theory section teaches these shapes and then checks them. Free while it is in beta.
Open the appRuns in your browser. The audio never leaves your device. iOS app coming soon.
Learn these on a real tune
Chords stick once they are holding something up. Every tune here is written out with the chord letters over the bars where the change happens. The circle of fifths for mandolin tells you which three of these shapes a key is going to call for.