How do I transpose guitar chords?

A bass player I played with for a while showed me this neat trick. Thanks Lenny!

First make a row of notes like this, a half-step apart. we’ll start with C. Notice that we’re listing all the notes, not just the C scale notes.

What key do we want to transpose to?How about E? Rewrite the note names exactly in order but underneath the first row, starting with E.

Now we can clearly see what notes correspond to the notes in the C scale. In the scale of C, the notes are C, D, E, F, G, A and B. In the key of E, the notes are E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D# and E.

Do you see? So let’s say you want to transpose C,F and G to the key of E. What you’re saying is “if C is now E, then F=A and G=B. All you’re looking for when you transpose is the same relationships in a scale with a different root so 1/4/5 in C is C/F/G which relate to E/A/B in the target key. Hope that helps you!