Tips
When shapes feel too hard
Use Common only, No barre, or a difficulty filter in Chord Shapes. Lower the maximum span in Settings to limit stretches. The minimum fret excludes open strings when set above zero. Changing a filter updates both shapes and an existing path. Difficulty estimates consider the fingers used, barre contacts, physical fret spacing, finger-pair stretches, combined hand reach, muting, and keeping open strings clear. Guitar estimates use a simplified hand model and a 648 mm reference scale length with typical string spacing; these are defaults, not measurements of your hand or guitar. Open Why this rating in a fingering popup for the reasons and estimated fretted span. Uncertain hand positions add difficulty rather than automatically removing the shape. Acoustic guitar is the default reference; Settings lets you adjust setup, reach, and barre comfort. These estimates are not yet player-validated. Difficulty badges use green for Easy, amber for Moderate, and red for Challenging, alongside the written label. Scores are relative, not a rating out of ten. Lower scores are easier; hand size, instrument setup, and practice also affect how a shape feels.
Common placements and difficulty
Gold outlines and a Common badge identify familiar fingerings. These appear first, followed by other shapes ordered by estimated difficulty. Ordinary full barres rate Easy or Moderate; partial barres can be harder when they require awkward finger placement or keeping nearby strings clear. A Common badge does not determine difficulty. Each shape's difficulty is separate from the movement score for a progression.
Keep a preferred shape
Click Choose an alternative on a path chord to open its fingering popup. Browse or hear the alternatives, then click Use for chord to replace that exact occurrence. The path stays visible behind the popup; closing it without choosing preserves the path. Optimize again to improve the surrounding changes while keeping your choice. Choices are remembered in this browser for the progression and instrument. Release kept shapes to return to automatic choices. If a filter excludes a kept shape, relax that filter or release the choices.
Read the path
The route preview shows its hardest shape and a separate movement score. Open/common route labels explain any exceptions. Calculation runs in the background; use Cancel calculation to stop it. Editing the progression clears the previous result.
Write a progression
Open Songwriting and choose a key, scale, style, and number of main chords. Main chords count slots, including repeats. Use Connections & structure to add passing or approach chords with their own limit. A two-main-chord foundation can therefore have three or four chords in total.
Maximum chord color expands the palette for new main chords. Each higher level includes all earlier options: triads and suspensions, then add9 and sixths, then sevenths, then ninths and thirteenths. Simpler chords remain in the mix; explicitly kept chords retain their color, including sevenths above a lower color setting; harmonic adventure controls outside-scale notes. Within scale checks every chord tone, including additions. Approach chords can use sevenths even at low color. Ideas use recurring harmonic patterns and prepared endings, adapted to the scale. Color allows richer chords without putting an extension on every chord. Style guides choices while scale and playability filters take priority.
Each main slot starts as one bar in the section’s meter (four quarter notes in the default 4/4 Ideas view). Fit additions into its final beats, or extend the progression with extra time. Change durations on individual preview cards. Each idea chord shows a recommended fingering and estimated difficulty. Use Other fingerings to browse diagrams, hear alternatives, and choose a shape for that chord occurrence. Your selection changes the preview sound and carries into Practice as a kept shape. The recommended fingering considers the whole phrase, including the return to the first chord in a loop. Other fingerings are sorted from low to high register, with the recommendation and common shapes labeled; common does not always mean easiest. The preview adds a gentle strumming pulse; ambient ideas sustain. Listen, keep main chords in variations, or use Edit progression to try changes. Undo changes restores the previous ideas, including their fingerings. To replace specific chords, select Try something else on one or more cards, then Try different chords. Other chords, their fingerings, and all durations stay in place. Selected chords must change; if no different playable option fits, the idea remains intact and offers adjustments. Selection releases a main-chord lock. You can keep the selection and try again. Open in Chord Router transfers the idea and timing to Practice; Save to idea library keeps it in the Progression library.
Build a song from sections
Songwriting has two views: Ideas for experimenting and My songs for arranging accepted music. Generate new ideas or choose Enter / load chords to type your own, copy from Practice, or use a library progression. Try these chords makes a candidate without changing your song. Generation settings collapse after ideas are ready and can be reopened at any time.
Play a candidate, adjust its chords or fingerings, then choose Use in song. Select a song and create or replace a section. In My songs, Use for Verse (or the selected section’s name) explicitly accepts a candidate. Browsing candidates, generating variations, and changing candidate tempo leave accepted music intact. Save to idea library creates a separate entry in the Progression library.
The arrangement shows accepted sections in order. Add section can relate its new ideas to an existing section: related movement, a chorus lift, or bridge contrast. These are harmonic suggestions, not rules. Optional Writing prompts encourage repetition, variation, and contrast; melody and rhythm can provide contrast even when chords stay the same.
Repeat adds a linked occurrence: chords and lyrics update together. Under Arrange selected section, Make independent copy creates separately editable music and lyrics; use it for a later verse with different words. Drag a card before or after another card to reorder the chain. Each card’s × removes that occurrence from the arrangement; Undo restores it. Move earlier and Move later remain available for keyboard use. Removed sections remain under Section details → All sections and can be added back with Repeat.
Accepted sections show expanded fingering diagrams by default. Click a chord card to open alternate fingerings; keyboard users can focus a card and press Enter or Space. Choose Use fingering to save that voicing directly to the section and its linked repeats. The chord symbol, duration, melody, and lyrics stay unchanged, and Version history keeps the previous fingering. These diagrams show accepted music, independently of working ideas. Lyrics are always visible in the section editor. Try alternatives opens its working ideas. Version history keeps the previous accepted progression when you replace it, including lyrics and tempo; Keep checkpoint saves a named milestone. Restoring a version preserves the version you are leaving. The latest 20 versions remain available.
Songs and the Ideas draft autosave in this browser. Song options & backups exports all songs, versions, section-library entries, and the Ideas draft. Import adds independent copies; an imported Ideas draft appears in the section library. Compatible saved fingerings are checked automatically. If a grip no longer fits the current instrument or filters, an inline action lets you retry or find new fingerings without changing the chord symbols.
Song options sets the time signature; Section timing overrides it for a section. Beat groups control the pulse: 3/4 uses 1+1+1, 6/8 uses 3+3, and 7/8 can use 2+2+3. Tempo is labeled ♩ BPM (quarter notes per minute). Changing meter preserves existing note lengths and partial bars. The melody ruler follows the section meter. Song and melody playback share Pause/Resume, a position slider, and synchronized looping. Playback settings contains loop ranges, accompaniment patterns, and separate chord, melody, and metronome volume/mute/solo controls. The metronome starts muted. Notes held across chord changes stay continuous. Changing accompaniment stops playback; Play auditions the selected pattern.
Ask AI, beside New song, creates or edits songs from a plain-language direction. Specify key, tempo, time signature, form, lyrics, melody, hooks, or just the parts you want in the initial prompt. Choose New song, Whole song, One section, or a narrower scope: Structure only, Lyrics only, Chords only, Melody only, Hook, or Transpose / tempo. Target one section or the whole song where appropriate. Narrow scopes preserve the other parts; linked repeats share edits. Select words before opening for a lyric rewrite, or choose a beat range for part of a melody. Preview proposal shows actual changes and before/after lyrics; Listen to proposal auditions synthesized chords and melody. Apply changes updates the current song, with Undo AI edit available until your next edit. Add to My Songs saves a new song. Key transposition moves chords, melodies and the song hook together. Lyrics remain a draft to sing and adjust. With an active connection, the section suggestion buttons open Ask AI with the scope already selected; Built-in ideas remains available inside it. New songs open in a focused section editor: choose Chords, Melody, or Lyrics. Sections marked Needs chords show Generate chords above every tab. Accept a progression, then generate a melody over it. Arrange sections contains adding, repeats, copies, plans, and Undo. Section options contains transitions, details, and version history. Whole-song lyrics is in the Lyrics tab; piano-roll view and MIDI utilities are under Piano-roll tools & MIDI. Suggest chords and Generate melody offer built-in ideas without an AI account. Listen, then choose Use this idea; melody Undo restores the previous notes. Generate only part of the melody to replace a phrase while preserving other notes. Song hook keeps a named phrase from a section melody and lets you audition it over another section’s chords. Place it at the opening, close, or a chosen beat, or repeat complete phrases. Original notes are kept by default; optional key transposition and octave changes preserve the phrase’s intervals and rhythm. Each placement is editable and has Undo. Linked section repeats still update together. Writing & placing a hook inside the dialog provides optional exercises and links to Berklee tutorials and repetition research. Suggest lyrics provides writing prompts in Built-in mode, or drafts and selected-word rewrites in AI-assisted mode. Suggest a plan previews a song order, reusing existing sections and marking new ones as needing content. In Settings → AI assistance, add a named OpenRouter or OpenAI connection and paste its key. Available text models load from that provider before you can choose one. Save & activate switches future suggestions to AI-assisted with that key and model; it makes no generation request. Test selected model sends one small billed request with the key and model in the form, without saving or activating them. Keep multiple named connections and switch them in the suggestion window. Saving from Ask AI returns there with the new connection selected. Names, providers, and model choices are saved in this browser. After reloading, connections remain listed with Reconnect; paste the key again to activate the same entry. Refresh models retries model lookup without generating text. Your last model choice for each provider is remembered in this browser and selected again only when the new key returns that model. Keys last only for the current page session and are excluded from backups. AI generation uses your provider’s billing. The suggestion window explains what song context is sent. AI lyrics fitted to a melody are starting drafts to sing and adjust. Chord controls, notes, and backups remain available in expandable panels. Accepting the first progression establishes the song’s key and tempo. Repeat adds a linked occurrence; Duplicate adds a separate section with the same starting music and lyrics. Song notes keeps the central idea and playing cues together. Melody uses a piano roll: drag on the grid to draw notes, drag notes to change pitch or timing, and drag a selected note’s edges to resize it. Chords appear above the grid. Snap controls the editing grid; empty space is a rest. Undo restores changes, and Note details provides keyboard editing. Import MIDI lets you choose a track and either retain its beat positions, fit it to the section, or keep only the part within the section. Import uses the section’s tempo and replaces its melody; Undo restores it. Export melody MIDI saves the current section. Export song MIDI saves the arranged melody and chord accompaniment as separate tracks with tempo and meter changes, plus chord-symbol markers. MIDI import preserves notes and velocity, not instrument sounds, tempo changes, sustain, or pitch bends. Play song and Play section include the saved melody when present. Export this song creates an importable backup of just the current song. Whole-song lyrics shows editable verses, choruses, and other sections in arrangement order. Each field saves directly to its section. Linked repeats update together; Make independent gives just that occurrence separate music and lyrics. Reordering the arrangement also reorders the lyric sheet. Play section uses accepted music. Hear into next section auditions the last two chords into the next two; unrelated unfinished sections do not block it. Play song plays available sections in arrangement order, including linked repeats and saved melodies, and skips sections that need chords. When nothing can play yet, the explanation below the button tells you to accept section chords. Songs are saved automatically; Save song, inside Song notes & options, also saves immediately. The My Songs button in the top navigation opens a searchable song and setlist browser from every tab. Search by title, lyrics, chords, or section, filter by song type or progress, and sort by title. Lists show 20 results per page; the songwriting book supports up to 1,000 songs. Song books use larger browser database storage and automatically carry over older saves. In Live, My Songs shows your current accepted music, section headings, lyrics, and tempo cues automatically. Unfinished songs stay listed so you can return to writing. Add to setlist makes a performance copy that stays unchanged when you continue writing.
Refine an idea
Choose Edit progression for More variations, Add passing chords, Simplify chords, or Change chord color. Passing chords turn connections on and follow your scale and allowed additions. Color changes use the maximum chord color in Generation settings. Simplifying preserves root movement but does not guarantee easier fingerings; use Playability to constrain grip difficulty. Select Try something else on specific cards to replace only those chords. Keep in variations protects a main chord during whole-progression variations. Undo changes restores previous candidates. Practice & musical details contains the handoff to Chord Router.
Build a live set
In Live, create a setlist and add songs. Each song has a chord chart, lyrics, key, tempo, and performance notes. Write [Verse] on its own line for a section heading, and [C]Your lyric [G]here for chords above words. Plain lyrics are also supported. Chart chords and lyric chords are separate references, so check both before performing. Saved timing is retained unless you edit the chart chords.
Enter stage view for a large chart, current/next chord and song, adjustable text, auto-scroll, and full screen. Transposition updates both chart and lyric chords, including slash basses. Nashville and Roman display follow the transposed key. Charts show concert pitch; capo notes do not alter chord names. Stage changes are temporary and never overwrite the saved song. Auto-scroll follows a reading speed, not the song's tempo.
Use left/right for chart chords, Page Up/Down for songs, Space on the focused chart to toggle scrolling, and Escape to exit. Touching or manually scrolling the chart pauses auto-scroll. Screen wake lock is requested when supported.
Songs created in Live remain in My Songs even after removal from a setlist. Setlists and lyrics save in this browser. Export a backup to move them to another device; importing adds copies. The Live tab reports when the app is ready for offline use. Prepare it with a connection first. Pro progression sync does not yet sync setlists or lyrics.
Read chord numbers
Choose a Notation key in Chord Router. Nashville and Roman labels follow that key on shapes, path cards, and library previews. They use major-scale-relative degrees: Am in A is 1m / i; C in A is b3 / bIII. This is the pop convention for Roman labels. Exploring a scale does not change the notation key. Bass degrees show inversions; they do not automatically imply a secondary dominant. Example songs supply their key, and new saves remember it.
Listen to your path
Play path auditions the selected fingerings at the chosen tempo, using saved durations where available. Preview sound is synthesized, with notes staggered like a strum. Stop playback ends it immediately; changing the route or playability settings also stops it.
When learning a song
Open Library at the top of the page to load an example or saved progression, then save the current path when it feels useful.
Practice a specific skill
Open Exercises in Practice and choose a skill and task level. Follow the three steps, set a comfortable tempo, and start a timed session with a four-beat count-in. Subdivision clicks divide the quarter-note beat into two, three, or four equal parts. Turn on Chord guide to hear checked fingerings while you play. Click any chord card to expand or collapse all fingering diagrams together, or open the exercise in Chord Router or the scale map. Stop after at least ten seconds to save how it felt; this is your own assessment, not microphone scoring. Teaching references and practice guidance are available at the bottom of Exercises.
When practicing scales
Open Scales after choosing a chord or song key. All note locations shows every matching note in each fret window. One location per pitch hides duplicate pitches on other strings; it is a suggested selection, not a fingering prescription. Names follow the selected key and scale degrees. Melodic Minor shows the ascending/jazz form in both directions.
Check what sounds
Selected Chord lists the actual notes, degrees, bass note, and any omitted tones. Bass chord shapes are chord-tone subsets; two or three strings do not necessarily contain a full chord or three different notes.
