Banjo · Chapter 6 of 23

Your First Chords: G, C, D7 and D

Three chords play hundreds of banjo tunes: G, C and D (or D7). G costs nothing: it’s the open strings.

A chord is several notes that sound good together. On the banjo, in open G tuning, you get the G chord for free. Two or three fingers give you C and D7, and with those three you can play along with a huge number of old-time and bluegrass songs.

Reading a chord diagram

The diagram is a picture of the neck standing up, as if you were facing the banjo: vertical lines are strings, horizontal lines are frets, and the thick line at the top is the nut.
Banjo diagrams show only the 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st strings, left to right. The 5th string is played open with every chord here.
A dot is a finger, and the number in it says which finger: 1 index, 2 middle, 3 ring, 4 little. A string with no dot is played open.

Press a diagram to hear the chord. The letters under the strings are the notes each string plays.

C

Ring finger (3) on the 1st string, 2nd fret; index (1) on the 2nd string, 1st fret; middle (2) on the 4th string, 2nd fret. The 3rd string stays open.

D7

Index (1) on the 2nd string, 1st fret; middle (2) on the 3rd string, 2nd fret; little finger (4) on the 1st string, 4th fret. The 4th string stays open. It looks like a stretch; it gets easy.

D

Index (1) on the 3rd string, 2nd fret; middle (2) on the 2nd string, 3rd fret; ring (3) on the 1st string, 4th fret, in a diagonal line. Use D or D7, whichever sounds right to you.

On the neck

The same C chord on the fretboard, as you look at the neck. Press the dots to hear each note.

Changing chords

The hard part of chords isn’t holding them; it’s moving between them in time. This exercise picks each chord with pinches: thumb and middle together (T+M) on the 3rd and 1st strings, then thumb and index on the 5th and 2nd. Four beats on each chord. Slow it down until every change is on time, then speed up.

Try it: one-minute changes. Set a timer for one minute and switch between G and C as many times as you can, strumming once each time the chord is clean. Write down the number. Do the same for C and D7. Tomorrow, try to beat your numbers. A minute or two a day makes chord changes automatic within a couple of weeks.

Want another shape, or a chord you meet in a song? The chord finder shows every banjo chord in every tuning, and plays them.

Remember

Banjo diagrams show strings 4 to 1; the 5th string rings open.
G = open strings. C = 2 0 1 2. D7 = 0 2 1 4. D = 0 2 3 4 (frets on strings 4, 3, 2, 1).
Practice the changes slowly and in time; one-minute changes speed them up.