The purpose of the Clapton language is to aid the guitar player in learning how to play any chord in any tuning. All possible fingerings for the chords (voicings) are shown. Users can see the proper fingering for particular chords, either with standard tuning, or with their strings tuned to a nonstandard tuning.

No matter what the tuning, programs written in Clapton will display a guitar fretboard with all the notes contained within a given chord. The notes in the selected chord will be highlighted in GREEN on the strings of the fretboard display.

By showing both the standard fingering and all other possible fingerings that can be used for the selected chord, Clapton programs allow guitarists to choose for themselves which fingering they want for the selected chord. This allows the guitarist to be creative and create different sounds even within the same chord.

The syntax for each of the listed keywords for Clapton can be found in the syntax section of this language definition.