A · Cavaquinho

Think of the sound of getting home and closing the door behind you. That's A major, in three notes. Give the audio below a listen and see if your body doesn't agree.

Listen first

What you just heard

Now listen to the arpeggio, one note at a time. There are only three: A, C# and E. The middle one is the one that matters. That's the major third, and it's what gives this chord its wide-open-day face — file that name away, because in a minute we'll move exactly that note and you'll hear the weather change.

Now it's your hands' turn

On the cavaquinho, four steel strings tuned D–G–B–D pack the chord into a small, bright space — every finger counts. So start with the first position below — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. Advice from someone who's seen this scene a thousand times: play the notes one by one before strumming. If one sounds muffled, a finger is touching the next string. Adjust, try again. Everyone goes through it; it doesn't last.

Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · try it in Chord & Fret

Above, the same A, higher up the neck. No rush — but the day a song wants this chord brighter and tighter, you'll already have the address.

What is A?

A: A Major. The notes are A, C#, E (fixed-do: La, Do#, Mi) — the degrees 1–3–5.

Where this chord lives

In real music, where does it earn its keep? Almost always as VI in C# minor, III in F# minor, VII in B minor. Don't memorize that — just notice that the same shape plays different roles in different songs, the way a word changes meaning with the sentence.

Transpose & Capo — Need it in another key? Move the whole chart and find the easiest capo · open in Chord & Fret

Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · use it in Chord & Fret

Real songs pass through here: Rock · mixolídio clássico · Rock · blues frame · Reggae · vamp maior · Forró · vamp nordestino · Forró · I-IV-V simples · Blues · twelve-bar

Where it tends to go

Treating A as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Bm / D) or the dominant (E / G#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.

Every shape of A lives in Chord & Fret Pro — 4 instruments, 16 tunings, 41 chord types and 57 scales, in every key. Start free. Unlock everything with Pro. 100% offline. Free to start, no card needed.

When you want to go further

When it's time to improvise over it, A Ionian (A B C# D E F# G# · 1 2 3 4 5 6 7: the plain major scale, where everything starts); A Lydian (A B C# D# E F# G# · 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7: the major scale with a raised fourth — one extra step of daydream) fit entirely. The swaps below are for when your ear gets bored of the obvious.

Scale — The whole scale on the neck — in boxes or 3 notes per string; on the major modes, on guitar in standard tuning, with the CAGED forms named · open in Chord & Fret

Improvising in context

To improvise over A as home, the A Ionian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (E) pulls back, the leading tone Ab is the note that wants to resolve home.

Swaps that work:

• Gbm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
• Dbm7 — Mediant (iii) — tonic function

Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · see it in Chord & Fret

One last test: play A and let it ring. Comfortable, right? Exactly. Now come see what happens when we add one note and take that comfort away: A7.

Updated July 9, 2026