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@Crabby said, “A C Chord is made up of an A note, an E note, and a G note.”
@campfire – I’m sure Crabby meant to say that a C chord contains the notes C, E and G rather than A, E and G. Just a typo, I’m sure.
I’m going to add some more thoughts that might help you, but please stop reading if any of this makes your brain hurt!
The first C chord most of us learn is the open C, for which we fret the A string in the third fret (producing the note C), the D string in the second fret (producing an E) and the B string in the first fret (producing a C note that is an octave above the C we have at the third fret of the A string). We also play the open G string and the open high e string, the latter producing a note pitched an octave above the note at the second fret of the D string.
But there are Cs, Es and Gs all over the fretboard. (Note: it’s a fun exercise spending some time to learn where the C is located on each of the six strings, then the E and then the G on each string.). Any time we play a chord that has only the notes C, E and G and we include at least one of each, our ear will interpret the resulting chord as a C major chord. It does not matter where those notes are located on the fretboard. It does not even matter what note is on the bottom (the lowest note). Our ears can interpred it as a C major chord because we hear all three required notes for that “triad” and only those notes – nothing extra thrown in that would produce new “colors” of sound and force us to name the chord something different.
When we sound an E-G-C with the E as the bass note, theorists call that the “first inversion” of the C major chord. If the G is the lowest note (G-C-E), they call it a “second inversion” triad. This is a lot of technical speak and more than you need to know. What you do need to know is that any chord that contains at least one C, at least one E and at least one G with no notes that are not C, E or G, it is a C major chord, regardless where on the fretboard those notes are being played.