How to play the same chord in different ways on the guitar?

4 min readJan 13, 2024

With my students, I always read sheet music. That means each of my students should be capable of looking at a sheet of music and start playing the chords right away after a quick look.

However, most of the time, the students get confused because the chord diagrams above the chords are not always the same, and they end up trying to play the new pattern.

So, why can you play a G chord in so many different voicings, yet it’s still always a G?

To get to the bottom of this question, we first need to understand how chords are built:

Here, we have four different ways to play a G chord. And ultimately, each one sounds like G. The only thing that changes is the chord voicing.

Let’s take a closer look at the G chord: In the first diagram, we press down on 3 notes and 3 open strings (the strings that are played but not pressed down with a finger).

The notes we play in total are (starting from the lowest to the highest string):

G, B, D, G, B, G

Example 1:

As you can see, we play the note G (red one) three times, the note B twice, and the note D only once.

On the guitar, chord tones are often doubled or tripled. It would sound too weak (sometimes though, we want them to sound weak!) to play each note only once. That’s why we take their octaves each note to achieve a fuller sound.

Example 2:

In this voicing, we play the note G three times, but the B only once, and instead, the D is played twice.

The chord tones are still the same, but a different one is doubled. It doesn’t matter how you arrange the notes exactly. As long as G, B, and D are present in a G major chord, it remains a G major chord.

Example 3 (Barre)

Now we come to a barre chord. In terms of notes, we use the doublings, etc., in the exact same way as in the second example. But why does the barre chord in example 3 sound different from the open strings chord in example 2?

The reason is quite simple; we use an ‘inversion,’ a reordering of the chord.

Sure, the inversion is not perfect. We’re essentially creating a different voicing, but we’ll get to the correct inversions shortly.

Instead of playing the notes in sequence, for example G -> B -> D, in the barre chord, we play G -> D -> (G octaved) -> B. So, we’re (almost) using an inversion.

Root position: G, B, D

First inversion: B, D, G

Second inversion: D, G, B

The chord is still G; you don’t even have to write anything to indicate that you’re not playing the chord in root position.

Triad Inversions

These three chords are all regular G major chords, but with their inversions. Initially, the chord may sound completely different and seem to have nothing in common with G major. However, they are the exact same notes, starting with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd notes.

If a G major chord appears in a song, you can use one of the examples above or even an inversion, and it will always sound correct.

List of Chords with Inversions

Here is a list of all chords (triads) and their inversions.