Chord & FretB · Electric guitar
A room full of friends, somebody borrows a electric guitar, and the first sound out is almost always a chord like this. B major is half the world's starting point. Hit play below.
Listen first
What you just heard
Play the arpeggio again, no rush. There are only three: B, D# and F#. 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 — 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 electric guitar a chord needs only a few clear notes — the amp sustains them and fills the space, so you mute the strings you are not playing and let the tone carry the rest. So start with the first position below — the position marked with ⭐ is the easiest to play. One tip from someone who's watched a lot of people get stuck: play the notes one by one before strumming. If one sounds muffled, a finger is touching the next string. Adjust, try again. It bugs you for a week and then it's automatic.
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 · open in Chord & Fret
Above, the same B, higher up the neck. No rush — but the day a song wants this chord brighter and tighter, you'll already have the address.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is B?
B: B Major. The notes are B, D#, F# (fixed-do: Si, Re#, Fa#) — the degrees 1–3–5.
Where this chord lives
So where does this chord show up in real life? Almost always as VII in C# minor, VI in D# minor, III in G# 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 · try it in Chord & Fret
Real songs pass through here: Rock · blues frame · Blues · twelve-bar
Where it tends to go
Treating B as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (C#m / E) or the dominant (F# / A#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
Every shape of B 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. Made by musicians, no ads.
When you want to go further
When it's time to improvise over it, B Ionian (B C# D# E F# G# A# · 1 2 3 4 5 6 7: the plain major scale, where everything starts); B Lydian (B C# D# E# F# G# A# · 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.
B Ionian
3 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 B 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 · try it in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over B as home, the B Ionian scale covers it whole — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (F#) pulls back, the leading tone Bb is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Abm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
- Ebm7 — Mediant (iii) — tonic function
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · use it in Chord & Fret
B is home. And home makes more sense once you step outside for a minute: B7 is the door — go see what's out there.