Chord diagrams

Chord diagrams or fretboard diagrams are used with chord symbols with stringed instruments like guitar, banjo and ukulele.

Below they are written right of the corresponding chord-symbol.

Automated chord diagrams

MusiCAD allows you to use pre-defined diagrams that can be shown as a result of the tunes' chord symbols.

A file chorddiagrams.mcd contains common diagrams for a bunch of instruments.

code	instrument	tuning
uke	ukulele	g-c-e-a
mandolin	mandolin / mandola	g-d-a-e
git	simple guitar (without barré)	e-a-d-g-b-e
guitar	guitar	e-a-d-g-b-e
banjo	tenor banjo	c-g-a-d
tambura	Bulgarian tambura	d-g-b-e
panduri	Georgian panduri	a-c#-e
baglamas	Greek baglamas / trichordo	d-a-d
bouzouki	Greek tetrachordo bouzouki	c-f-a-d

The file itself is a plain text file that can be edited at [Options|Preferences|Files|Chord diagrams]

Enter the code of one of the listed instruments on the instrument section of the part properties dialog and you'll be presented with the chord diagrams corresponding to the chord symbols.

Use the text-style chord diagrams in the text dialog to select a style (position, color, size) for displaying your chord-diagrams.

The layout toolbox has a template to accommodate everything in one click.

Manual chord diagrams

MusiCAD comes with a specially designed font (MCDiagrams) to create these chord diagrams.

Manual diagrams are composed by writing sequences of digits

   1         2        3        4        5

The special characters 0 and x represent an open string and a not-to-be-used string

The first diagram is created using 3211, the second with x00232.

To enter a manual diagram, use the tools button during edit, or the shortcut <ctrl-alt-shift [>

See also

• how to find chords
• chord symbols
• chord notation systems
• chord map
• baglamas chords
• balalaika chords
• banjo chords
• bouzouki chords
• guitar chords
• mandolin chords
• panduri chords
• tambura chords
• ukulele chords