# Technique, Theory, Playing Tips and Tricks > Theory, Technique, Tips and Tricks >  Survival Mandolin Chords for Beginners

## Phil Vinyard

I am teaching an Adult Ed class on how to play in a bluegrass jam. Some of the folks are a little overwhelmed when they see a full chart of chords and think they'll never learn enough of them to play in a jam. 

I've made the attached "Survival Chords for Mandolin" to give to my mandolin players, and I'm sharing it here with my Cafe friends. My point is if you know the I, IV and V chords in basic jam keys, you're good to go. I threw in the VI/relative minor chord and the flat VII for good measure. They are all 3-string chords which are a little easier to play, and also sound good in a chop.

Let me know if you find this useful, or of any changes you would make to the chart.

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B381, 

Ben Cooper, 

Cory McGowan, 

David Watson, 

Fstpicker, 

Jane Rose, 

jhowell, 

Jim, 

jimk65, 

Jimp, 

Leigh Coates, 

Lilac, 

Mandolindaa, 

Matt Harris, 

mnfork, 

mtndan, 

noah finn, 

OneChordTrick, 

pit lenz, 

Ryk Loske, 

Steve Weeks, 

tenfour, 

Tommy Berry, 

Travis Wilson

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## Michael Richmond

This looks useful Phil. What are the red finger marks indicating?

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## MikeEdgerton

If you look at the red dot and compare it to the fingerboard chart in the bottom right hand corner you'll see that that dot corresponds with the name of the chord, giving you the root of the chord.

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## Phil Vinyard

Yep, Mike is right. It's the root of the chord. The trick is, these are all closed chords so you can move them all up or down and get other perfectly useful chords. 

For example, learn the basic positions on the D Major row. Then when someone starts a tune in E major, you know you can just move the D row chords up two frets, keep the same shapes, and you're good to go.

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## joni24

These are really helpful, thanks!  I have a problem making the 4-finger "chop" chords because of arthritis in my pinky, so these 3-finger versions should be a decent alternative.  I like the fact that these I, IV and V chords are all close to each other fret-wise so there's minimum jumping around the neck.  Good job.

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## mandolirius

Throw in the major two chord as well. It's not as common perhaps as the relative minor but common enough to warrant a mention, I think.

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## LarryMando

Thanks - I printed off a copy of that Bad Boy as soon as I opened the file

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## LarryMando

although, now that I look it over . . . D Major   I think I would label the I Chord just as  D  not as DM, that (DM) threw me for a tizzy for a bit.

Also, why not the classic 4 finger G chop chord anywhere on chart?

and what fingerings do others play for example in the Key of A - - - I tend to use the three triangular shapes for the A, D and E . . .I realize this is personal preference, and there are plenty of threads on fingerings for chords . . . and no right or wrong answers but if you are in a jam, Key of A and the tune is at your upper speed for comfort - - what (3-4 string) fingerings do you use?

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## Earl Gamage

I really doubt your students will think that looks any easier or less overwhelming.

You can show one key of either bluegrass chop chords or bar chords and teach them why the chords are moveable.  Just three chords and they are off and running.  

Show them the II and VI in another lesson.

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## John Gardinsky

It's a tall task to fit everything you want to tell a beginner about chords on one page.  I think you did a pretty good job.  I agree that the major "M" is confusing.  Also I tend to think of the V chord of a minor key as being major but I see why you made it minor. Neither is wrong.  Nice work and thanks for sharing.

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## Ray Neuman

Thank you Phil! COOL sheet!

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## Paul Busman

4 finger G? We don't need no steenkin' 4 fingered G!   :Wink:   For my purposes at least, 3 fingers are plenty choppy enough.

Nice chart.  I plan to play around with it later on.

I agree about the M=major confusion.  I'd go with just the capitalized letter for the name of  the chord, which is much more usual.

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## Phil Vinyard

I appreciate all the good feedback! Here's what I've done:

1. The M convention for Major came from QwikChord3. I just edited that and spelled it out, and then redrew the chords (attached).

2. I stuck to the I, IV, V, minor VI and flat VII because that seemed to cover the VAST majority of the chords we play in the jams I frequent. Here in Central Missouri, we tend to play more old time rather than pure bluegrass, so these chords fit well. Because of space & simplicity reasons I considered leaving out the flat VII, but that is such an important idiom in bluegrass that shows up even in simple songs (Old Joe Clark comes to mind) I thought it worth including. 

3. I learned about 3-string chords from Radim Zenkl one year at Kaufman Kamp and dropped using a Monroe 4-string pattern and switched to these myself. I can get a good, woody chop out of them just fine. And I think they sound better together since they tend to lie in the same tessitura.

4. And, again, these chords are for survival. As you get better, you need to learn to add more chords, inversions, sevenths, etc. But with this set you could hold your own in most jams.  

Anyway, please try them out and send more feedback if you have any. I'm going to try them out with my beginning jam class on Wednesday & these folks may also give me a few suggestions.

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## Paul Edwards

Hey thanks for the pdf! This is quite useful.. need all I can get!

Thanks again!

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## Jim Broyles

> It's a tall task to fit everything you want to tell a beginner about chords on one page.  I think you diuse d a pretty good job.  I agree that the major "M" is confusing.  Also I tend to think of the V chord of a minor key as being major but I see why you made it minor. Neither is wrong.  Nice work and thanks for sharing.


I agree that the 5 chord in a minor key should be major, that is why the key signature way of naming minor keys is kind of  misleading. In a strictly theoretical way it is accurate to show a minor 5, but in actual practice our ears want to hear the leading tone of the major third in the dominant chord in a minor key and most minor key songs use a major 5. Also, if I may suggest, use upper case Romans for major chords, lower case for minor chords, and use + and ° or  o, if you can't make a superscript circle (Ctrl + 0176 on a Windows machine) for augmented and diminished. It isn't standardized yet but there are a lot of people trying to make it the norm.

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Mark Gunter

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## swampstomper

Nice idea, however you might consider how they will move from chord to chord. For example, you use the standard 3-finger C, and from there an F keeping the ring finger on the low C, moving the middle over from the 2nd string C to the 3rd string F, and the index finger from the 3rd string E to the 1st string F, leaving the 2nd string open, is (to me) a simple shift than completely repositioning the hand as you have it. Then why not the 2-finger G with the G and D strings open, or maybe that C shape again but as a 3-finger G? Again an easy shift. I guess you are trying to avoid open strings? If these are beginners they will probably strum not chop, right? In which case open strings are good. Or, they can damp with the right hand.

Anyway it's great what you are doing in adult ed!

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## Joel Glassman

Good chart, but for total beginners I've taught
"2 finger" chords first. More folk than Bluegrass,
but a good place to start. Here's a version from the net.
[This person left a few out ie. A= 2200]

Click to enlarge.

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B381, 

Ben Cooper, 

bigbendhiker

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## Mandobart

I'm self-taught on mando, coming from a violin/fiddle and guitar background.  With just a little theory and willingness to do things a little different, I came up with some barre chords that do the trick for D, E, F and G.  Move this up to A (9th fret) and it sounds kind of thin.  Note that the two-finger C and G shown above are just "0 fret" versions of these barres.  Which makes me wonder why no simplified F chord (2-3-0-X) to round out the key of C?

Key of D for example. The D (I) chord is: Lay index across all strings on the 2nd fret, ring finger on D string 4th fret, pinkie on A string 5th fret. Don't move the index finger. The G (IV) chord is ring finger on the G string 4th fret, pinkie on D string 5th fret, middle finger on E string 3rd fret. Keep the index right where it is. The A (V) chord is made by moving the ring finger to the A string 4th fret and the pinkie to to E string 5th fret. Key of D I, IV, V chords without ever shifting the wrist position. You can move this shape up the frets to get other keys. Mess around with lifting the pinkie and placing the middle finger 2 frets lower than where the pinkie was for the I and V chords and now you have the 7th version of these chords. Or lift the ring finger and place the middle finger 1 fret below where the ring was for the I and V and now you have minor version of these chords.

This stuff ain't rocket surgery.  How you teach is at least as important as what you teach.  You don't have to get a bunch of different, apparently non-related chord shapes up front.  By leveraging the beauty of fifths tuning with a simple shape that moves across the strings for I-IV-V (7ths and minors) and up the neck to change keys a rank beginner can jam in several keys with something they can learn in an hour or less.

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## Phil Vinyard

After my class lecture on music theory last week to my Beginning Jam class, I realized the guitars and banjos could use this guide as well. I used pretty generic chord patterns for them--real guitar and banjo folks may want to substitute their favorite patterns or (horrors!) capo up here and there.

Again, the reasons I chose the chord patterns I did for mandolin:

1. They aren't as easy to play as two-finger chords, but are really not much harder and I think worth the effort.

2. Because they are all (but 1) closed position, you can chop them all easily and move them up or down to make other less common chords. 

3. They aren't exhaustive, yet I think I could have played off the chart at the jam I was at last night and had over 95% of the chords we used covered.

4. They sound pretty good in a chord progression--no jumps between a really high pitched chord and a really low pitched chord. 

Anyway, print and use if you like, and pass on to guitar and banjo beginners if you think it would help them.

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Ben Cooper, 

Clicker, 

cunparis, 

Goat Driver, 

htbboats, 

MadMountMan, 

Mike Steadfast-Ward, 

Mo Soar

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## MamaChicken

These are great!  Thank you!  We have mandolin, guitar, and banjo learners in our house so I printed out the whole set.

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## BarryC

Thanks for this really useful chart, Phil. 
As a complete beginner, knowing pretty much nothing of music theory, and learning on octave rather than standard mandolin, I've found this a really helpful learning aid...
With this, and Joel's chart above too, I find the whole business of learning manageable chording a lot less daunting.

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## jmalmsteen

For the banjo chord chart, I would just show the F, D and bar forms since those are the ones commonly used.

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## RootsMusicVirginia

This mandolin beginner really appreciates your Survival Chords chart.

A small matter ... I see you use red to identify the root chord.  Using red for highlighting seems almost universal.  Those of us with so-called red-green color blindness can have trouble with that (not so much on your chart) because of the low contrast between red and black (believe it or not).  Using blue would work wonderfully for us, and presumably as well for those with "normal" color vision.

Much obliged!

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## mahoganyfolk.com

This is awesome thank you!

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## Chip Booth

Organizing chords into keys can certainly be very useful, and I appreciate the effort out in to making the chart.  I would like to point out that there is some questionable theory scattered amongst the thread.  The thing that bothers me the most is labeling the vi chord as VI MINOR.  My experience has been entirely that major chords are referred to by upper case roman numerals and minor chords by lower case.

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## Jim Broyles

> Organizing chords into keys can certainly be very useful, and I appreciate the effort out in to making the chart.  I would like to point out that there is some questionable theory scattered amongst the thread.  The thing that bothers me the most is labeling the vi chord as VI MINOR.  My experience has been entirely that major chords are referred to by upper case roman numerals and minor chords by lower case.


I have advocated this practice and was encouraged by concurrence from the late Prof. John McGann, but alas, it is not standardized. In fact, you do see VI minor (along with II minor and III minor) all the time.

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## pickloser

> I have advocated this practice and was encouraged by concurrence from the late Prof. John McGann, but alas, it is not standardized. In fact, you do see VI minor (along with II minor and III minor) all the time.


IIRC, all upper case is the way it was done in Ohmsen's Music Theory for Modern Mandolinists book, and the discussion was less clear than it could have been because of it, although it's still a great resource despite this.  The upper/lower case convention for major/minor helps minimize confusion for me, and I hope it becomes more universally used.

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## michaelpthompson

> sing blue would work wonderfully for us, and presumably as well for those with "normal" color vision.


But probably not for those who print it out in black and white.

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## Pasha Alden

Hi phil thanks so much for this list!

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## styx66au

Thanks Phil for your efforts.  Coming from a guitar background trying to learn new patterns is a bit intimidating.   But your work here will make my learning a little less daunting.

Cheers from a newbie,

Steve

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## chukarwalker

Thanks, very useful indeed!  I prefer the first version, but both are there.

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## Pasha Alden

Hi Styx and all - I have to praise Phil's efforts yet again.  Have started using that list and it is really helpful.  Started to use e minor and f sharp minor also e major.  Wonderful.  
Along with the cross picking I have now mastered quite a few extra songs to jam along with.  

My first jam is the 16th of March and I am a bit apprehensive - but sure all will come up roses - or should that read grace notes?

<big smile>  

Happy strumming and picking to all

Vanilla

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## Misty Stanley-Jones

Bumping this really useful thread, which I found via Google!

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Ben Cooper

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## farmerjones

Misty,
A paperless way I used to quickly get the I, IV, V in the common circle jammer's keys, is to think of the thumb as the root, and alphabetically go to the fourth(ring) and fifth(pinky) finger. Disregarding flats & sharps, obviously.
 i.e. D=thumb, G=ring(finger), E=pinky. 
Or G= thumb, C=ring, D=pinky. 
(Remembering the last note letter is G, so it goes back to A)
C=thumb, F=ring, G=pinky.

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## Marc Ferry

Thanks very much indeed Phil! I have one tip that you should share with the overwhelmed folks:

With any chord shape, moving it down (towards the body) one string makes the fourth, and moving it up makes the fifth! That has simplified things a lot for me.

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Mike Steadfast-Ward, 

Misty Stanley-Jones

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## Ole Joe Clark

Thanks for this chart, it's a great help for duffers like me, with a guitar background. I have a question concerning the root of a chord, (I understand the root is #1). How is the root determined when making a chord, for instance G, if you note the -G- at 3rd fret, 1st string, and the 4th string is open -G-, (tuned to -G-)? Which -G- is the root?

Moderator:  If this is not in the right section, please move it.

Thanks,

Joe

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## Phil Vinyard

You have to think of it more as the chord pattern (or "grip" as Don Stiernberg calls it) telling you where the root is. Looking at the grip for the basic G chord on the chart: the root is there in the middle as fifth fret on the D string. So that grip also works as far down the neck as you can go (works as a good E major by using the first two frets) and as far up the neck as sounds good (I rarely take it past the G major chord using the 4th & 5th frets). The grip I suggest for the A major chord has the root in the G string. So you can move that back a fret and get an A-flat major, and move it up the scale on the G string up to about at C major. And the root for the grip I use for the D major chord is on the D string. I typically use it up to an E major chord. 

So the idea is to keep the chords all in about the same pitch range by switching between the three main grips (advice I first learned from our fearless leader, Mr. Tichenor). That's where the Bill Monroe universal chord fails us--one chord can lie fairly low in the mandolin's pitch range, the next quite high, and the overall sound is a little wonky. 

And, as was pointed out earlier, in a pinch you can take any of the grips and move them over a string and get a chord that's a 5th higher. Thus, using the A major grip as shown, move it over to the D-A-E strings and you get an E major chord. 

The roots of the chords are shown in red on the chart. If you know the notes on your fret board, you can work out the best grip for the chord you're trying for. 

If that doesn't answer your question--PM me and I'll explain further! The chart is a culmination of things I've learned over the years (heavily influenced by Don Stiernberg and Radim Zenkl) and is meant to be a quick first reference for beginners.

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Ben Cooper

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## Ron Cox

Thanks Phil!  Always love a different view (especially when I'm stuck).  Extra tools are always appreciated.

My daughter is struggling with her guitar playing and this might remove a stumbling stone or two.

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## bacongrease

thanks phil vinyard

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## bargemule

I'll take all the help I can get. Thanks Phil.

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## christopher.glenn

> Thanks Phil!  Always love a different view (especially when I'm stuck).  Extra tools are always appreciated.
> 
> My daughter is struggling with her guitar playing and this might remove a stumbling stone or two.


Obviously I don't know what her sticking point is, but if it is chord related on the guitar I would suggest picking up a book or video that covers the CAGED system, I know that learning it de-mystified a lot of stuff for me. 

To the OP, thanks for this great chart.

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## bacongrease

great!  thank you very much!



> I appreciate all the good feedback! Here's what I've done:
> 
> 1. The M convention for Major came from QwikChord3. I just edited that and spelled it out, and then redrew the chords (attached).
> 
> 2. I stuck to the I, IV, V, minor VI and flat VII because that seemed to cover the VAST majority of the chords we play in the jams I frequent. Here in Central Missouri, we tend to play more old time rather than pure bluegrass, so these chords fit well. Because of space & simplicity reasons I considered leaving out the flat VII, but that is such an important idiom in bluegrass that shows up even in simple songs (Old Joe Clark comes to mind) I thought it worth including. 
> 
> 3. I learned about 3-string chords from Radim Zenkl one year at Kaufman Kamp and dropped using a Monroe 4-string pattern and switched to these myself. I can get a good, woody chop out of them just fine. And I think they sound better together since they tend to lie in the same tessitura.
> 
> 4. And, again, these chords are for survival. As you get better, you need to learn to add more chords, inversions, sevenths, etc. But with this set you could hold your own in most jams.  
> ...

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## Misty Stanley-Jones

If you play a major chord in the G chop chord shape (with or without pinky) if you slide your lowest finger (your index finger,) toward the headstock) one fret lower, you get the minor of the same letter name. That finger is playing the third of the chord.

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## JeffJones

I like the chart, I think it is would be a great reference for students, and is better thought out than many similar charts I have seen. Some books seem to have chord charts where someone just randomly grabbed a bunch of mandolin chords and jumbled them together into a chart just to be able to say the book has a chord chart. There often seems to be little concern for how the chords would work together, or the what chords would be most useful to someone just starting out.

I have a slightly different approach than the OP that I like to use to with beginning mandolin players, or even intermediate players who are either having trouble with the standard chop chords, or are just having trouble playing in odd, less common, keys.

I teach basically one shape


| | |
I | |
| | |
| R |
| | L
| | |


It can be played with the little finger on the E string,


| | | |
I I | |
| | | |
| | R |
| | | L
| | | |


or on the A string,


| | | x
I | | |
| | | |
| R | |
| | L |
| | | |


but at it's core it is still the same shape.

The show them how to tweak it to make the 7th and minor variations,

Minor Variation

| | |
I | |
| M |
| | |
| | L
| | |


7th Variation

| | |
I | |
| | M
| R |
| | |
| | |


Then I show them two  1-4-5 grouping and how to move them up and down the neck.

Key of A

A (I)
D (IV)
E (V)


| | | |
I I | |  2
| | | |
| | R |  4
| | | L  5
| | | |


| | | x
I | | |  2
| | | |
| R | |  4
| | L |  5
| | | |


| | | x
I | | |  4
| | | |
| R | |  6
| | L |  7
| | | |




So the 1-4-5 movement of the root note for this chord group would look like:

4 1
| |
5 |

(This bit make more sense when I can demonstrate on the mandolin the relationship between this group chords. I feel like I am doing a poor job explaining the relationship between the 1-4-5 chords here, which sucks because that is the part that makes this approach particularly useful. I may need to put together a proper chart and maybe even a video to explain this better.)

Key of E

E (I)
A (IV)
B (V)


| | | x
I | | |  4
| | | |
| R | |  6
| | L |  7
| | | |


| | | |
I I | |  2
| | | |
| | R |  4
| | | L  5
| | | |


| | | |
I I | |  4
| | | |
| | R |  6
| | | L  7
| | | |





And the 1-4-5 movement of the root note for this chord group would look like:

| 4
| |
1 5


Then as long as they either; have a chart similar to the one the OP has at the bottom right of the PDF, or memorize a few of the most common chords using this pattern and the chromatic scale, they can play any chord and in any key relatively easily.

This way they only have to remember basically one shape and two variations to that shape, and only two groupings of chords for any given key. As opposed to 5, by my count, different positions and 5 different groupings of chords for different keys in the OP's chart.

Now I do not include the 6m or the flat 7 chord usually when I introduce this stuff. At this point I am usually having the students stick to 1-4-5 songs. But adding in those chords to this approach does not really complicate things that much. There are no new chord shape to learn, the minor is just a slight variation of the base major chord shape. All you have to do is add the 6m two frets above the 5 chord and the flat 7 chord two frets below the 1 chord.

So now the root notes groupings look like this:

For the chord group based around the A

| 7
| |
4 1
| |
5 |
| |
6m|

And  then for the chord group based around the E

7 4
| |
1 5
| |
| 6m


I like doing it this way because it reduces the variety of chord shapes someone starting out need to learn, and it introduces the number system early and, I think at least, in a way that makes sense and makes the students life easier. It also keeps the root note of the chord in the same place for pretty much every chord.

Obviously this is a very limited system and it leaves out a ton of useful chord shapes. But the point of this is not to show all possible chords, but just to give the minimum necessary information to get someone going in a jam, or playing in new and different keys than they are used to.

Crikey, that would up way longer than intended. Hope somebody finds something in there useful.

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## triscuitbiscuit

I never thought I had that thin of fingers (and I'm a guy!), but I just picked up my mandolin (yay!) and I'm trying to get some of the basics down (GCDAE). With A and E, I can't seem to get my index finger to cover two pairs of strings. Any tips?

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## JeffJones

Sometimes for that A and E you can flatten the last bit of your finger(distal phalanges?), rather than fretting with the tip of the finger. 

You can also focus on getting the inner 2 strings out the the G and D courses, rather than trying to get all 4 of the strings from the two courses. So, you would focus on getting the G string closer to D course and the D string closer to the G course to ring out clearly, and not worry too much if the outer strings are muted. It is not the ideal solution, but it might be a way to at least start getting those chords to work for you.

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## Flad

Thank you for sharing this with us! As a beginner I found it really useful.

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## UsuallyPickin

Good job Phil....... that's what newbies need to "get started" . R/

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## agirlandheryarn

Thank you for this! I dropped by to get help with the 4-fingered G chord and I read every thread in this post. Thank you for the print out! It will help in my jamming class!

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