Chord & FretE · Ukulele
Remember the first chord you ever learned? It was probably one of these. E major is the sound of "we made it": the song lands on it and your shoulders drop on their own. Hit play below and notice — nothing missing, nothing extra.
Listen first
What you just heard
Play the arpeggio again, no rush. There are only three: E, G# and B. 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 ukulele, the high reentrant G makes every shape light — and with four strings, every note is exposed. 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's annoying for two days and then never again.
2 more shapes of this chord on the neck
That's over 200,000 voicings and inversions in Chord & Fret Pro, ready to play.
Precision Tuner — Before you play these shapes, get in tune — chromatic tuner and reference tones · try 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.
Left-handed? Mirror's right here
What is E?
E: E Major. The notes are E, G#, B (fixed-do: Mi, Sol#, Si) — the degrees 1–3–5.
Where this chord lives
In real music, where does it earn its keep? Almost always as III in C# minor, VII in F# minor, VI 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 · open in Chord & Fret
Identify Chord — Found a shape on your own fretboard? The app names it back · see it in Chord & Fret
Real songs pass through here: Rock · mixolídio clássico · Rock · blues frame · Reggae · vamp menor · Forró · I-IV-V simples · Blues · twelve-bar · Blues · twelve-bar
Where it tends to go
Treating E as the home chord (I) of its key, it usually moves toward the pre-dominant (F#m / A) or the dominant (B / D#°) — and the dominant pulls back home. Typically, not a rule.
Every shape of E 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.
When you want to go further
When the solo comes around, E Ionian (E F# G# A B C# D# · 1 2 3 4 5 6 7: the plain major scale, where everything starts); E Lydian (E F# G# A# B C# D# · 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.
E 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 E 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 · open in Chord & Fret
Improvising in context
To improvise over E as home, the E Ionian scale fits entirely — it contains every note of the chord. And when the dominant (B) pulls back, the leading tone Eb is the note that wants to resolve home.
Swaps that work:
- Dbm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
- Abm7 — Mediant (iii) — tonic function
Reharmonize — Want richer substitutions? Reharmonize the progression in a tap · use it in Chord & Fret
One last test: play E and let it ring. Comfortable, right? Exactly. Now come see what happens when we add one note and take that comfort away: E7.