This random chord chooser names one chord per press, such as A♭ major 7th, and spells it: A♭ C E♭ G. Drill chord spelling, warm up on any instrument, or take a random chord as the start of a song.
Read the full guide
Practice: spell it first, then check
Press Hide notes, draw a chord and name its notes aloud or play them, then show the notes to check yourself. Starter chords are the major and minor triads; sus chords, sixths and the plainer sevenths are intermediate; diminished, augmented and half-diminished chords are advanced. The dropdown filters by type; More filters adds level and root.
The twelve chord types
Four triads: major, minor, diminished and augmented. Two sus chords, which swap the third for the second (sus2) or the fourth (sus4). The major 6th, a major triad with the sixth added. Five sevenths: major 7th, minor 7th, dominant 7th, half-diminished and diminished 7th.
Tips
Each note takes its own letter, so B augmented is B D♯ F♯♯, not B D♯ G: its fifth must be some kind of F.
Questions and answers
Why are some chords named with flats and others with sharps?
A black-key root has two names. The list takes the one that gives the chord fewer sharps or flats: A♭ major (A♭ C E♭) and not G♯ major, but G♯ minor (G♯ B D♯).
What is the difference between a diminished 7th and a half-diminished 7th?
Both stack a minor third and a diminished fifth on the root. The half-diminished adds a minor seventh: C E♭ G♭ B♭. The diminished 7th lowers that note once more: C E♭ G♭ B♭♭.
What do sus2 and sus4 mean?
The third is left out and another note stands in its place: the second for sus2 (C D G) or the fourth for sus4 (C F G). With no third the chord is neither major nor minor.
How this list was compiled: Computed by script and never typed: 12 roots times 12 chord types, 144 chords. Each chord is built from its type's intervals above the root (major third 4 semitones, minor third 3, perfect fifth 7, diminished fifth 6, augmented fifth 8, major second 2, perfect fourth 5, major sixth 9, minor seventh 10, major seventh 11, diminished seventh 9) and each note takes the letter its interval asks for, so no letter is used twice in a chord (C♯ major is C♯ E♯ G♯). A black-key root takes whichever of its two names gives the chord fewer sharps or flats; on a tie it takes the key name the scale page uses. Checked by the same script against the chord tables of Wikipedia, read 2026-09-30: all 84 diminished, augmented, major seventh, minor seventh, dominant seventh, half-diminished and diminished seventh chords match their row in the table of that article note for note (Diminished triad, Augmented triad, Major seventh chord, Minor seventh chord, Dominant seventh chord, Half-diminished seventh chord, Diminished seventh chord); the 24 major and minor chords match the root, third and fifth of the major seventh, dominant seventh and minor seventh tables; in the 36 sus2, sus4 and major sixth chords the root, third and fifth match the major seventh table and the second, fourth or sixth is that note of the major scale on the same root as this site's scale page spells it. In words: a major chord on C is C E G (Major chord); a suspended chord replaces the third with a perfect fourth or a major second (Suspended chord); on a C major chord the added sixth is A (Sixth chord). Chord symbols as in Wikipedia, Chord notation and Seventh chord. All at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ . Licence: own work