Terms A–Z
- Barre
- Pressing one finger flat across several strings at the same fret, acting like a movable "clamp" or capo built into your hand. Barre chords let you play any chord shape at any fret. See how to play barre chords.
- Capo
- A clamp you attach across the neck to shorten the strings, raising the pitch of every open string by the same amount. It's a shortcut for playing easy open-chord shapes in a higher key.
- Course
- A group of two or more strings tuned together (often in unison or an octave) and played as if they were a single string. 12-string guitar, mandolin, and some ukuleles use courses instead of single strings for a fuller, chorused tone.
- Diatonic
- Belonging to a particular key or scale — using only the notes (or chords) that naturally occur in it, with no notes borrowed from outside. The seven chords built from a major scale are called that scale's diatonic chords. See the diatonic chords tool.
- Interval
- The distance in pitch between two notes, measured in steps like "major 3rd" or "perfect 5th." Intervals are the building blocks of every chord and scale. Full explanation on the intervals page.
- Mode
- A scale made by starting the major scale's notes from a different degree, giving each mode (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, and so on) its own distinct flavour despite sharing the same notes as its parent major scale. See the guide to the seven modes.
- Movable (shape)
- A chord or scale fingering with no open strings, so it keeps the same shape and quality no matter which fret you start it from — just slide it up or down to change key. Barre chords and the CAGED shapes are the classic example.
- Sus (suspended)
- A chord that replaces the 3rd (the note that makes a chord major or minor) with either the 2nd (sus2) or the 4th (sus4), creating an open, "unresolved" sound that often wants to resolve back to the plain major or minor chord. See all the chord types on the chord construction page.
- Tonic
- The "home" note of a key or scale — the note that feels like rest and resolution, and the one a song's melody and chords tend to gravitate back to. In the key of C major, C is the tonic. Explore this on the scales by tonic page.
- Voicing
- A specific arrangement of a chord's notes — which octave each note sits in, which note is on the bottom, which notes double up — even when the underlying chord (like C major) stays the same. Different voicings of the same chord can sound bright, dark, open, or tight.
Keep building your vocabulary
These terms show up constantly across the site — see them in action here.