Chord fingering – Pete style
About this page
Overview of Pete Townshend’s common chord shapes and fingerings.
Unique to Pete Townshend’s guitar-playing style is the way he fingers chords. The biggest difference being the omission of the 3rd in many chords (see power chords) and using the thumb to either mute the low strings of a chord or to play the bass note of a chord. In some transcriptions, I’ve tried to indicate fingering; however, I haven’t done it in all transcriptions. So here is a guide to basic fingering, PT style. Though not an exhaustive list, these are the most common chords and voicings found in PT/Who songs, with or without a capo. Keep in mind, your guitar teacher will likely slaughter you if he or she catches you using some of these …
If you have questions, or there are other chords for which you’d like to know the fingering, contact Whotabs.
Chord fingering
Legend:
t: thumb
i: index finger
m: middle finger
r: ring finger
p: pinky
Typical PT chord fingerings:
E: 022400 and 02xxxx and 022xxx and 022100
iip i ii mri
A: x02255 and x02xxx and x022xx and x02220
t iipp t i t ii t mir
D: 2x0232 and xx0232 and xx023x and xx0235
t irm tt irm tt ir tt imp
G: 3x0033 and 3x0003
t rp r p
F: 1x3211 and 133211
t rmii trpmii
Fsus4: 1x3311
t rpii
C/G: 3x2013
r m ip
G7: xx3033 and xx0001
m rp i
A7: x05050 and x05250
r p rip
Bmin7: x20232
i mpr
Cadd9: x32030 and x3x030 and x3x033
mi r m r m rp
D/A: x0423x
t rim
D7: xx0535
rip
A form barre chord (D): x5777x and x577xx
ippp ipp
E form barre chord (A): 577655 and 577xxx and 5x7655
trpmii ipp t rmii
C form barre chord (Eb): xx5343 and x65343
rimi primi
If you’re used to chord boxes, see below for example:
Fingering box for A5 (x02255)
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