C · Cavaquinho

Think of the sound of getting home and closing the door behind you. That's C major, in three notes. Press play down there and see if your body doesn't agree.

Listen first

What you just heard

Go back to the audio and catch the arpeggio note by note. There are only three: C, E and G. Keep your ear on the middle one. That's the major third, and it's what gives this chord its wide-open-day face — remember the name, 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 — it uses 1 open string, so the cavaquinho does half the work for you — 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. It's annoying for two days and then never again.

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

Above, the same C, 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 C?

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

Where this chord lives

In real music, where does it earn its keep? Almost always as VII in D minor, VI in E minor, III in A 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 · see 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: Sertanejo · eixo pop · Sertanejo · clássica caipira · Pop · axis · Pop · axis rotação · Mpb · ii-V-I · Mpb · IV ao iv (ref. conceito)

Where it tends to go

Treating C as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (Dm / F) or the dominant (G / B°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.

When you want to go further

When the solo comes around, C Ionian (C D E F G A B · 1 2 3 4 5 6 7: the plain major scale, where everything starts); C Lydian (C D E F# G A B · 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 · try it in Chord & Fret

Improvising in context

To improvise over C as home, the C Ionian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (G) pulls back, the leading tone B is the note that wants to resolve home.

Swaps that work:

• Am7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
• Em7 — Mediant (iii) — tonic function

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

C is home. And home makes more sense once you step outside for a minute: C7 is the door — go see what's out there.

Every shape of C 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.

Updated July 9, 2026