Beginner Chords For A 4 String Cigar Box Guitar

If you’ve started with a 3 string guitar in G D G, you may like to consider building or buying a 4 string version in G D G B to give you a bit more versatility and a richer sound.

Strumming a 1 finger barre on a 4 string guitar in open G plays a major chord rather than a power chord.
To play a minor chord add the third fret above the barre on the 2 top strings
To play a 7 chord drop the 2nd string down 2 frets

Major Chords On A 4 String Cigar Box Guitar

It’s really easy to play Major chords on a guitar tuned G D G B since the 1 finger barre chords automatically play the major chord. The chord depends on the fret you are playing the barre on:

Minor Chords On A 4 String Cigar Box Guitar

Minor chords are a little trickier because you need to fret the 2 top strings 3 frets above the barre:

Although G minor is easy for me to play, I can’t stretch my fingers to play the strings with all 4 fingers as in the middle chord chart below but you might be able to. I need to use the right hand version with a barre across all strings:

How To Play 7th Chords On A 4 String Cigar Box Guitar

The 7th chord is very similar to the 7th chord on a 3 string guitar. You just need to drop the 2nd string down 2 frets:

You’ll notice that the chart starts with an A chord. This is because we need to drop the 2nd string down to the open string and we can’t go any lower than this. To play G7 we need to use the 12th fret for the G and D notes.

We cannot play the barre as a barre, we need to use separate fingers, just as we did on a 3 string guitar.

Here is a chord chart for the movable 7 chord with 2 examples:

Alternative Tunings For A 4 String Guitar

E B E G and D A D F# are both open tunings in E and D respectively. These tunings can use the charts above although the actual chords played will be different.

I have written an article on which strings to use for these tunings: 9 Different Tunings For A Cigar Box Guitar

This article also suggests using 6 string guitar tuning: E A D G ( the 4 bottom strings of a 6 string guitar) or D G B E ( the 4 top strings of a 6 string guitar) In these cases it would be easiest to adapt 6 string chord shapes.

Here is a blank chord sheet you can download if you want to work out your own chord shapes for your 4 string guitar in any tuning:

4-string-blank-chord-chart Download

I have also written an article in which I explore other tunings for a 4-string guitar in which I change just the top string, leaving the 3 lower strings as G D G : 3-alternative-tunings-for-4-string-cigar-box-guitar/

Learning The Notes On A 4 String Guitar Tuned G D G B

It’s really useful if you can learn the notes on the fret board if you want to build your own chords so here is a handy chart I’ve made you:

If you want to download a file containing all the tables for the chord shapes and fretboard notes I have included on this page in one handy pdf here is the link:

4-string-guitar-in-GDGB-notes-and-easy-chords Download