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 218,399 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. Plays offline. Works offline, no account needed.
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 35,178 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 three notes per string, with an exercise and a tempo ramp · 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:
- Dbm7Dbm7Dbm7Dbm7 — Relative minor (vi) — same tonic function
- Abm7Abm7Abm7Abm7 — 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.