Explorable fretboard
Click a cell to see the sheets using the chord played at that position.
This tool is for anyone who already knows a few chords but doesn't yet know where the same shapes turn up elsewhere on the neck. Each cell of the grid shows the catalogue chords playable at that position; clicking it goes straight to the sheets that use them. Everything is worked out from the site's own diagrams and rendered entirely server-side — the page stays readable without JavaScript. The goal isn't to memorise the neck in one go, but to connect what you can already play to where it actually sits across the six strings.
How to read the explorable fretboard
The six rows are the strings, from lowest (top) to highest (bottom); the numbered columns are the frets, from the open string (0) to the end of the neck. A highlighted cell means at least one catalogue chord passes through that position. The badge shown is the chord code, and it links to the list of every sheet that uses it.
The same chord shape shows up in several places: that's exactly what the explorable fretboard makes visible, and it's the principle behind barre chords and the CAGED system — a shape learned near the nut slides along the neck without changing its relative fingering.
Practical tips and common mistakes
- Use it to connect a chord you play in open position to its barre version further up the neck: same name, same function, different position.
- A cell with no active chord doesn't mean "nothing to play there" — only that no catalogue sheet places a chord at that spot. The whole neck is still playable.
- To work on single notes rather than chords, use the octave visualiser; for scale positions, the scale library. The explorable fretboard answers the question "which chord lives where".
- Don't try to take it all in at once: start from a chord you know, spot its other positions, and only add the next one when the first is solid.
A concrete example
Find F on the low E string at the 1st fret: the cell links to every sheet that uses the F barre chord. Now compare it with the open E major shape on the open strings: the fingering is the same, moved up one fret and completed by the index finger as a barre. That's the starting point of the CAGED system.