PLEASE!
What we didn't add in the guideline is that they also often get upvoted to near-top of the thread, which chokes out interesting discussion. More of the problem is caused by the upvotes than by the comment itself, but it's harder to do anything about the upvotes.
Most sites/app (this on included) let you change the tuning but I'd love to find one that can handle a list of presets, so I don't have to wrestle the GUI to change each string when I want to play another song.
Any recommendations ?
[1]: https://github.com/uhoh-itsmaciek/fretboard.cool/blob/master... (there's a quirk noted in the TODO there so you need to shift the fifth string down a fourth when specifying the tuning).
Another banjo player here. We're few, but enthusiastic.
When I first started taking guitar seriously, after years of kid piano lessons, I really struggled to "find" notes. I mostly play both by ear and by visual shape, not by intervals or reading staves. So while taking jazz music theory courses I eventually sat down at a piano with a guitar in my lap, played the note on the keys to find the note on the fretboard, and then carefully drew out a scale map exactly like the one you have here for every mode I wanted to learn. Knowing what "shape" a scale had from the root has been enormously useful while improvising at my (still) intermediate level. I have kept that piece of notebook paper I wrote out for over 20 years now. This is a much finer implementation!
My only initial feedback is to put some of the logarithmic visual compression between frets into the visuals. This is a visual learning tool and visually the fretboard is not evenly spaced. Also, maybe dot markers?
Dn = [(L – Dn-1) ÷ 17.817] + Dn-1
I implemented it in my guitar learning software, because, I agree with you, visual perception is important in my opinion: https://www.fachords.com/guitar-learning-software/
Actual answer is: because after 10 years of having a mediocre classical piano teacher beat the love out of my must-syncopate-Beethoven-fingers I decided to learn guitar on my own terms.
I spent hours a day in my room with music I wanted to sing, screwing around with tabs and chord charts and fingering charts. Later when I took a jazz theory course (at a university no less!) I was handed staff music with all these weird scales: mixolydian, dorian, phrygian -- I had no idea this stuff existed. Since I never learned to read staff music on guitar, but I know it on keys, I had to translate by ear. Since I was learning improvisation I wanted a map of the "acceptable" notes that I could mess around on my just hitting them at random. (In a way this is like a hack's Wayne Krantz improv exercise.)
Every autodidact builds their own ruts and then when it's time to learn new tricks they have a choice: build on the rather particular foundations already laid and see if some interesting and useful architecture can be laid on top, or tear it down and do it the "normal" way. I chose expedience and uninterrupted passion, but had to hack my way into it. And I still love the instrument, and I still play in those mental visuals scribbled onto yellow legal paper.
There are myriad ways to approach the guitar, and it seems I found mine. When I check out something like the Pat Martino video course[1] I find it completely baffling, if not profoundly impressive. In my read people think guitar is easier than it is because the 4-chords pop chart is not hard to achieve, but if you want to exceed that the learning curve shifts quickly. I think Chris McQueen of Forq / Snarky Puppy / etc explains this all rather well. [2]
[1] Pat Martino sees different things than I do on the fretboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc7Qvp8Zs6U&list=PL2TrPkuyjM...
[2] Chris McQueen knows he makes it look easier than it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCLv-tiQBuk
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I made an iOS app for memorizing notes. You play the note on your guitar and it recognizes if it’s correct. Helps build muscle memory instead of just memorization. https://fretpro.app if anyone wants to check it out :)
The E strings are ok (the notes are E, F, Gb, etc).
But the other strings are broken (A string is A, C, Db; D string is D, Ab, A; B string is B, Bb, B, C); etc.
I noticed a bug, not sure where to post feedback so posting here. When you change the vertical order the string labels don't change so it's unclear which way it is. The fret number markers do update when you change the left/right order, though, that one is more important.
Love the backing tracks idea. Not sure why they're behind a paywall when a good chunk of them is shared by the original creators on e.g. YT? Also, you might want to make clear how they benefit from your paywall.
Fretboard was oddly zero-on-right at startup, and then flipped... on disabling root notes???
If you must have a light/dark mode switch, please label it.
I'm not sure how useful the Chord mode is. No separation by position, and beyond that, I know I'd certainly prefer text mode over a drop down box.
For tuning, please please please give me the common ones as a drop-down. I don't want to click 15 buttons to get a drop-D.
I'll fix the theme switch and add some common tuning settings (like drop-D) to the tuning config popup :D
Thanks
If you haven't seen other videos by Jake, I'd strongly recommend checking it out.
One thing that's missing from this is chords in a key and related chords in a scale. For that I use guitarscale.org which is another amazing resource for learning music theory.
Here's an example https://guitarscale.org/c-major.html
Click the CAGED button and a piano keyboard appears. Click it again and a "go premium" prompt pops up.
Click "Custom" under Harmony and everything disappears, replaced by a create-your-own scale window with no way back.
Can't close the Popup Piano (what's it for? It doesn't make sound)
Try to "play along" so you can hear the notes just resets the scale to whatever note you click on.
More than a nit, I can't figure out what Chord Mode under Harmony is doing. There's no separation by position. So it's not much good for learning how to play any particular chord. It's showing every possibility at the same time, rather than what you'd actually play.
Fretboard orientation seems to revert to zero-on-the-right silently, very confusing as there's no reduction in fret spacing as you go up the neck.
The scale description (I guess?) section says "E major for Guitarundefined" then has the same copy text about the first mode of the church no matter what I select.
And now it's totally confused, I asked for E Major scale and the fretboard is locked to something that's no recognizable scale, while the piano keyboard is tracking the selection I make.
Overall I found usability to be a real challenge, with lots of unexpected behavior and "modal" aspects (in the UX sense) that confused me. I kept having to configure the UI to show me things I know easily to see how they were reflected on screen so I could understand what it was showing me with stuff I know less well, like some of the modes (musical sense) that I'm trying to internalize. Ultimately it isn't going to help me more than a good book in its current state, but I'll bookmark it and check back.
I've considered trying to consolidate them into something a little more general purpose and usable, but I'll honestly consider just using yours and perhaps even paying to unlock some more features after I use it a bit more. I'm an engineer by day job, and as much as I love building my own tools and feel like I learned a lot about music theory in building my tools, I would really like to just spend my guitar time actually playing rather than doing _more_ coding.
Thanks for sharing, and great work!
I'm developing a jam-companion app and I'm wondering the best way to do market research
Convincing me to sign up requires pricing information before asking me for money.
Regardless of the above - great work!
Edit: nevermind, looks like all of that is supported, but I was looking for it towards the top of the screen.
I'll have to use this to brush up on scales and see how it goes.
