The A Shape: Roots on the Fifth String

The A shape is the other workhorse, and between them the E and A shapes will get you through most songs.

An open A major puts three fingers in a row on the second fret of the fourth, third and second strings. To move it, barre with the index finger and make that row of three with your other fingers, or flatten your third finger across all three — most players end up doing the latter, since it is faster.

The root of this shape is on the fifth string, so you name the chord by whatever note your barre is holding down there. Barre at the second fret and the fifth-string note is B.

B

B major: the A shape barred at the second fret. The note under your barre on the fifth string is B, so the chord is B.

Slide the same shape up one more fret and the root becomes C.

C

C major as an A-shape barre at the third fret. You now know two completely different ways to play a C.

And two frets further again gives D.

D

D major as an A-shape barre at the fifth fret.

The A shape proper uses five strings, not six, and muting that sixth string is the main thing to get right — usually you let the tip of your barring finger rest against it lightly. The B major chart above shows the common variant where the barre covers all six, which puts an F sharp underneath the chord rather than a B. That is a perfectly good sound and plenty of players use it, but the safer default, especially with a bass player in the room, is to leave the sixth string out.

Play it through one string at a time to check the muting is working and every fretted string rings.

The A-shape barre at the third fret, one note at a time

This is a C major. The x means that string stays silent — touch it, do not press it.

e
B
G
D
A
E

-----------------3--|
--------------5-----|
-----------5--------|
--------5-----------|
-----3--------------|
--x-----------------|

Here is why this pairing matters so much in practice. The sixth and fifth strings are a fourth apart, which has two useful consequences. The first is that the same chord in the two shapes sits five frets apart: an E-shape C is at the eighth fret, and the A-shape C is five frets lower, at the third. The second, and the one you will use constantly, is that two chords a fourth apart — G and C, A and D, E and A — can be played at the same fret, one with each shape. G as an E shape at the third fret, C as an A shape at the third fret. No hand movement at all between them.

That single observation is most of what rhythm guitarists are doing when they play up the neck.

An R&B groove in A major. Try the A-shape chords at the fifth fret and the E-shape at the fifth as well, and hear the difference in weight.