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What do the colors mean?

The colors represent finger colors.

Finger corresponding colours

Chord diagram

2

Information about this chord

Alternative names

C Major Ninth ,  C Major 9th ,  Cmaj9

Tones

1, 3, 5, 7, 9

View major chord for guitar with other root notes

Where should I start?

As you can see above, there are lots of different chords you can learn. The good news is that if you learn just a handful of the most common ones, you can play most popular songs. These are often called "cowboy chords" – they're the chords everyone needs to know when jamming around a campfire. Download our cheat sheet.

If you're a more experienced player, you can try learning whichever chords you need from the above library. While it's interesting to simply choose new chords and learn them, the best approach is to learn chords you need when you come across them in songs.

A happy guy playing the guitar with Yousician app

How should I practice?

It can be tough learning chords: finding the ones you really need, getting your fingers to cooperate, memorizing different chords, building speed, and being able to play them in songs. Luckily, the interactive guitar-learning app Yousician is an excellent way to do this. Yousician has teacher-crafted lessons to help you learn new chords at your own pace. It also gives you popular songs that are right for your skill level, helps you build skills with mini-game chord workouts, and more.

Once you've learned your basic cowboy chords, Yousician can help you tackle the much longer list of harder chords that comes next. From all the chords with imposing fancy names, like A7sus4, to all the hand-cramping barre shapes, Yousician can help you learn and master them in bite-size chunks so you don't get overwhelmed.

Visit the Yousician
Songs Library

Watch preview videos of Yousician in-app gameplay and search for songs by song name, genre or instrument.

Visit Songs Library
Yousician on mobile

Extend your learning

Once you’ve learned how to play a few simple chords on your own, you can take those learnings further by playing on the Yousician App. With Yousician, you can practice with mini games, learn to play popular songs and take teacher-crafted lessons.

Download the appAvailable for iOS, Android, and Desktop
Available for desktop and mobileAvailable for desktop and mobile