Wanted to share this tool I made for myself to help learn some new things. I know a few folks out there have made apps/sites for similar functions, but none of them quite fit exactly what I was looking for. I had started building all this logic out as an Excel workbook that I could use to look things up, realized it was getting ridiculous, and just because I *can* doesn't mean I *should* - so I turned it into an opportunity to learn React and spent a couple days using Claude Code to help me figure out formatting and UI actions. (And then went way too far down the rabbit hole trying to polish this up.) It looks fine on desktop or a tablet, but was designed to be usable simply via web browser in a small-width smartphone screen; if enough people are interested, I may be able to turn it into a proper iOS/Android app, but I'm sure this is very niche.
This was inspired by my playing with a group that uses a lot of very interesting jazz chords. I've been playing steel for several years now and feel pretty comfortable that I've learned where to play my basic chords up and down the board. But, I was twisting my brain into knots about what the best place to play something over an Abmaj7b5 would be. Well, now I know!
How to use the app:
- Enter the chords you want to map out.
In "Chord" mode, you can do this by either typing directly into the bar, or clicking through the note > chord position buttons to explore.
In "Note" mode, you can manually enter notes if you don't know what the chord is called.
- Review the list of positions returned at the bottom.
Click on the position header on the left to change which is displayed in the summary grid at the top.
You can click on the chords in the summary grid to edit them, or the X on the left to remove.
- Customize your copedent, tuning and display settings to your preferences.
These are the settings panels at the top. Add/remove whatever pedals you want to show as possible options by entering a label.
For instance, I don't like using the LKL/F lever. So by default, it doesn't show to demonstrate the functionality.
If you put an F (or whatever you wish to call it there) in the label box, positions using the F lever will be returned in the logic.
You can also change the strings and degrees the levers/pedals change.
If you use something other than vanilla E9/C6, you can just edit individual string tuning as well.
The site should remember your settings in local memory, but you can export/import your settings to be safe (via a text file download)
If you click the note "pill" boxes in the chord results at the bottom, it will highlight all places the note appears in the chord grid.
The top string grid next to the chord names/positions is very small on mobile, but just meant to give you a visual idea of which strings you can play.
You can export the list of chord names and positions via downloading or copying the text to the clipboard via a button at the bottom of the page.
Would love to hear any feedback. Let me know if anything is unintuitive or ugly (or buggy/broken - and what browser/device you're using if so)
There are a couple small things I already know I need to fix, and the big thing is I would like to add options to use 6, 8, or 12 strings instead of only 10; that will just require some heavy lifting to figure out the best way to format.
