Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Playing the guitar is a great way to relax and de-stress. One of the best things about the guitar is the large number of songs you can play with just a few chords. All you need now is a good website or app with all the guitar chords and lyrics of your favorite songs.
Ultimate Guitar benefits from a large community of guitarists who contribute chords and tabs to the website with over a million songs. You’ll also find several different versions of the songs to practice on, too.
Search for songs by track name or artist, or click the chord button in the search bar to search for particular chords. That way, if you’re new to the guitar, it’s super easy to find songs you can already play by searching for chords you already know.
Users can rate guitar chords and tabs out of five, making it clear which version is the best. Ultimate Guitar also offers a subscription for $39.99 a year, including access to guitar lessons and music theory, the ability to transpose songs to a different key, and the option to simplify more complex chords.
Ultimate Guitar also allows users to post short videos, called Shots, in the app. You can look at the most popular chords and recent guitar tabs or search the top 100 tabs of all time to start learning some classics.
Opening a tab will show you the chords and their diagrams, as well as the lyrics of the song and where to play a chord in the song. When you are ready to play, click Auto-scroll button at the bottom of the screen to start your jam session.
Download: Ultimate Guitar: Chords and Tabs for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
AZChords is a great, free website that offers thousands of popular songs with guitar chords. You can sort artists alphabetically, check out trending artists on the home page, and see the latest songbook updates for recent songs like I Love You, I’m Sorry by Gracie Abrams.
When you click on a song, AZChords will display the lyrics and chords that match a specific lyric or part of the song. You can click on the chord name highlighted in blue to see where to place your fingers on the guitar.
For example, the entry for APT. by Rosé and Bruno Mars includes the list of chords used next to the song. In the background, the entry also includes notes on the strumming pattern, general chord progressions, and common mistakes that people may encounter when playing this song!
Sometimes, you want to learn a particular song even if you don’t know how to do it that well. Chordify is perfect for these situations. This website features a super clean interface with great chord diagrams that update as the song plays in real time.
Press the play button and pick up your guitar. Chordify loads a YouTube video in the corner and starts playing the current recording. The display in the center of the screen shows a square box for each bar and tells you when to change to the next chord.
If anything, it’s all a bit too simple. There’s no information about strumming patterns, and Chordify doesn’t offer alternate chords, even if the song needs it. There are no lyrics, but it’s a good place to start.
Also, if you sign up for an annual subscription for $27, you can unlock tools to change the tempo, volume and pitch of the song while you play along.
Download: Chordify for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
Songsterr provides an in-depth look at sheet music and chords for those who are proficient in reading music. With a premium subscription to Songsterr at $9.99 per month, you can unlock the original audio that will play with the score, change the tempo, and even play individual sections in a loop to keep practicing.
This website syncs with a YouTube version of the song, so you can listen while it plays. You can also transpose the song to different keys for free. Clicking on a specific part of the song will also sync with the YouTube video. This is useful if you are stuck on a certain part of the song and want to practice.
Songsterr is much more advanced than just the lyrics and chords in the options above, so it may take some getting used to if you’re a music beginner. If you want, find the best audio interface to record yourself so you can review your performance later.
Download: Song for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
At Chordie, you can search for the song name, artist, lyrics or chords you want to play. It doesn’t have a huge catalog of free guitar chords like Ultimate Guitar, but Chordie presents chords and lyrics in a super clean interface.
Chordie is built by another community of guitarists who contribute their time to upload guitar chords and lyrics to various songs. What’s great about Chordie is that there’s only one version of each song, so you don’t have to work through five bad versions first.
When you open a song in Chordie, the chords you need are displayed in the upper right corner. You don’t need to throw out a guitar book every time you forget how to play an F chord when you can just scroll to the top of the page.
Chordie also gives you simple tools to change the font size, transpose to a different key, adjust chords based on your capo position, and automatically scroll while you play. The clean interface includes a tab section for important riffs, too.
The E-Chords home page features video lessons, new tabs, tutorials, and featured blogs. Search for songs, artists or lyrics to find the free guitar chords you’re looking for. You will then open in a clean page with many useful tools running on the left side. There are video lessons available for free.
You can customize the look of songs by choosing simplified chords, changing the color of the links, and even clicking and dragging chords where you want them next to the song. Hover over a chord name above the lyrics to see how it plays.
Verses and choruses are separated, making it easy to learn the structure of a song with a quick glance. All the chords you need are listed at the bottom of the page, so take a moment to learn the song before you begin.
There are great customization options, too. You can use the tools on the left of the screen to set your scrolling speed, change the font size, change the color, or simplify the settings to your liking.
YouTube is a classic for all great DIY, how-to, and other video-based learning endeavors. There are a multitude of video tutorials for popular songs. A quick YouTube search for a song will pull up a variety of different video tutorials. Some videos have accompanying chord charts, while others just have a person playing the guitar and showing you how to place your fingers on the guitar.
YouTube is a great alternative resource to written guides because creators can demonstrate strum patterns, timing, and other appropriate twists to make each song sound more like the original.
There are some great websites if you are looking to learn the basics of playing the guitar through lessons, too.
Download: YouTube for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
You have a whole world of popular songs to learn guitar chords and lyrics to, and you can do it all for free. Whether you learn best by reading or watching, all of these websites and apps are great tools to have in your musical toolbox.
