Chord & FretA# · 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
Play the arpeggio again, no rush. There are only three: A#, D and F. Keep your ear on the middle one. 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. Before you get discouraged for nothing: 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.
2 more shapes of this chord on the neck
Part of over 200,000 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · see it in Chord & Fret
The other positions are the same chord living on different floors of the neck. You don't need them today. But when a song asks for it higher and tighter, you'll know where it lives.
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. No ads, no trackers.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
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
So where does this chord show up in real life? Almost always as I in A# major, V in D# major. 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 · try it 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: Pagode · ciclo do pagode · Pagode · subida cromática (ref. conceito) · Samba · ciclo de quintas · Samba · ii-V-I
Where it tends to go
Treating A# as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Cm / Eb) or the dominant (F / A°) — and the dominant pulls back home. It's a tendency, not a law.
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.
A# Ionian
4 more scale positions on the neck
Part of over 35,000 mapped scale shapes in Chord & Fret Pro — see and play every one.
The same A# Ionian in its main shapes along the neck — pick whichever position sits under your hand. The rings mark the guide notes (the 3rd and 7th) that carry this chord's color.
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 · use it in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over A# as home, the A# Ionian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (F) pulls back, the leading tone A is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Gm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
- Dm7 — Mediant (iii) — tonic function
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · open 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: A#7.