Michael Hogg - Software - Guitar Chord Explorer

Introduction

About this program

Guitar Chord Explorer (GCE) is a free program which, as you may have guessed, allows you to explore many chords that can be played on any 6-string guitar:

Find the name of that great chord you’ve just discovered, with a powerful search engine.
Build your own chord voicings quickly and easily.
Explore the relationships between chords, using clear visual displays.
Use any string tuning, for right- or left-handed guitars.
...and more!

Use the table of contents on the right to navigate this instruction manual.

I’ve been playing the guitar since 2002, and I’ve come across many websites with guitar chord programs, but I’ve never been totally satisfied with any of them. Some have terribly complicated controls, some produce confusing chord diagrams, and some even contain incorrect chord voicings.

I wanted to create a program that’s both powerful and easy to use, while still making it free for all to share, so in 2003 I began to develop GCE in Java. After a few months of work, I put an early version of GCE onto my old website, and continued developing it. By early 2004, GCE was finished, and had attracted 5,000 visitors. By October 2007, the number of visitors had reached 100,000.

I don’t pretend to think GCE is the best chord program of all time, but it provides several features which I personally find very useful when writing or tabbing songs, and I hope that others find it useful too. There are many new features and improvements that I’d like to add, and one day I’ll hopefully find some time to develop and release version 2.

In the spirit of the Internet community, I am making GCE free for all to share, but any donations would be very gratefully received, since I have devoted countless hours to designing and testing this program. Many thanks

Introduction

Overview

Click on one of the features in the screenshot below to find out more information about that feature.

GCE screen

GCE has four different modes:

	1				Database lookup
	2				Interval highlighter
	3				Voicing builder
	4				Chord search engine

To select a particular mode, click on its button. The button of the current mode is highlighted in yellow .

Chord information is presented in two displays:

Main Display – Shows the guitar fretboard, with the 6 strings running horizontally (lowest string at the bottom), and 14 frets running vertically. Each coloured dot indicates where to place your finger to play the corresponding note. Open strings are indicated by a dot on “fret zero” (the nut). All occurrences of the notes in the current chord are shown.
Intervals Display – Shows the structure of the current chord (ie. the intervals). For example, a major chord is constructed from the root, 3rd and perfect 5th intervals of the chosen key.

Depending on the mode, various notes will be highlighted in both displays, to illustrate a particular aspect of the current chord.

Easter egg: See if you can discover how to reveal a hidden smiley

somewhere on the screen! If you find him, you can play with him by clicking on him!

Introduction

Basic controls

The key buttons indicate the key of the current chord:

In most modes, simply click on the key button of the chord you wish to explore.
In chord search engine mode, the key of the current result will be highlighted green . If you want to do a restricted search, or inspect very unusual chords, click on the appropriate key button (it will turn purple ).

The chord buttons indicate the current chord type:

In database lookup and interval highlighter modes, click on the chord you wish to explore.
In voicing builder mode, click on the chord you wish to build (unless it’s a custom chord).
In chord search engine mode, the chord of the current result will be highlighted green .

The dots in the two displays can have different appearances:

	If the current mode allows you click on particular dot (eg. entering search notes in mode 4), then the dot will be 3D (with a raised surface). If a dot cannot be clicked on (eg. viewing a database voicing in mode 1), then the dot will be flat.
	The dots can either be blank, or they can be labelled with note names. To toggle between these two settings, click on the show/hide notes on dots button.
	Throughout the program, you can choose to use either sharps or flats (# or b). To toggle between them, click on the use sharps/flats button.

Introduction

String tunings

GCE can use any string tuning you like. All tuning information appears in the bottom-left corner of the screen:

To change the tuning of a string:

Click on its button, and the corresponding string will highlight.
Use the small up/down buttons to alter the string’s note.
Click on the string’s button again to deselect it.

To reset all strings to their standard tunings, click on the Standard button.

As well as using alternative tunings, you can:

Explore chords for a left-handed guitar, by entering E B G D A E for the tuning.
Simulate the effect of a capo, by increasing the tuning of all strings by an equal number of semitones (for example, G C F A# D G represents a capo on 3rd fret).

Note: the chord database only contains voicings for standard tuning.

Introduction

The chords

To see the structure of a particular chord (ie. its intervals), click on its chord button and look at the Intervals Display (this will work in most modes).

Symbol	Name	Alternative name
Major	Major
Minor	Minor
b5	Major (flattened 5th)
aug	Augmented	Major (sharpened 5th)
7	Dominant 7th
m7	Minor 7th
maj7	Major 7th
mmaj7	Minor/major 7th
7b5	Dominant 7th (flattened 5th)
7#5	Dominant 7th (sharpened 5th)
7b9	Dominant 7th with added flattened 9th
7#9	Dominant 7th with added sharpened 9th
dim7	Diminished 7th
mb5	Diminished	Minor (flattened 5th)
m7b5	Half-diminished 7th	Minor 7th (flattened 5th)
maj7b5	Major 7th (flattened 5th)
5	5th	Power chord
m#5	Minor (sharpened 5th)
m7#5	Minor 7th (sharpened 5th)
maj7#5	Major 7th (sharpened 5th)
sus2	Suspended 2nd
sus4	Suspended 4th
7sus2	Dominant 7th (suspended 2nd)
7sus4	Dominant 7th (suspended 4th)
add2	Major with added 2nd
add9	Major with added 9th
madd2	Minor with added 2nd
madd9	Minor with added 9th
add4	Major with added 4th
add11	Major with added 11th
madd4	Minor with added 4th
madd11	Minor with added 11th
6	Major with added 6th
6/9	Major with added 6th and 9th
m6	Minor with added 6th
m6/9	Minor with added 6th and 9th
9	Dominant 9th
m9	Minor 9th
maj9	Major 9th
mmaj9	Minor/major 9th
11	Dominant 11th
m11	Minor 11th
maj11	Major 11th
mmaj11	Minor/major 11th
13	Dominant 13th
m13	Minor 13th
maj13	Major 13th
mmaj13	Minor/major 13th

Mode 1 - Database lookup

Overview

In this mode, you can access a database containing 1,205 chord voicings for standard tuning:

	Select the desired key and chord, by clicking on the corresponding buttons.
	Voicings are displayed by highlighting the required notes in the Main Display.
	Click on the next/previous voicing arrow buttons to navigate through the available voicings.
	Click on the currently-selected key or chord button to return to the first (most common) voicing.

The Intervals Display will highlight all notes that appear at least once in the current voicing. In voicings for big chords, some intervals may be omitted (more details).

I’ve tried to organise the database so that similar voicings are grouped together when navigating through them. Voicings that are very high on the fretboard (ie. 10th fret and above) may only be easily playable on guitars which have extra free space on one side of the fretboard (eg. most electro-acoustic guitars).

If a chord doesn’t have any voicings in the database, or you’re using a non-standard string tuning, no notes will be highlighted on the fretboard. If this happens, you can use the voicing builder mode to build your own voicing.

Unlike huge printed charts of guitar chords (where it often takes a while to find your chord in the chart), this mode will show you voicings for your chord instantly. And unlike automatic chord generators (which often produce duplicate voicings, or ones that are impossible to play), every voicing in this database has been tried out and entered by hand! Many of the voicings were discovered using the voicing builder mode.

Mode 1 - Database lookup

Barré chords

As well as basic voicings, the database also contains barré chord voicings (where several strings are held down on the same fret by one finger). However, GCE will give no indication about how these chords should be played, because there is often more than one way of playing them.

For instance, the most common voicing for F major is shown on the left. A lot of people barré the whole first fret with their index finger (and then add the other notes with their remaining fingers). But some people prefer to barré just the highest two strings with their index finger, and use their thumb to make the F note on the lowest string.

Since this kind of situation arises fairly often, I’ve decided that GCE will just display the notes to be played, and the user is free to decide the actual fingering.

Mode 1 - Database lookup

Smaller variations of voicings

It’s often possible to get extra voicings from an existing one, by omitting some strings.

For instance, two different voicings for E major are shown on the left. They are both valid voicings, since they have all the required notes, and the lowest note is E. The second voicing is formed by omitting the lowest two notes of the first voicing.

In such cases, only the largest voicing will be included in the database. Smaller variations can be found by using the voicing builder, or simply by looking at the highlighted notes on the fretboard.

A smaller variation of an existing voicing may be useful if:

it’s easier to play, or
it sounds better when used in a sequence of chords (eg. in a song).

Note: be careful when finding smaller variations for “add” chords – make sure that the distance (number of semitones) from the bass note to the added note is still correct (more details).

Mode 2 - Interval highlighter

Overview

This very simple mode allows you to highlight all the notes on the fretboard that match an interval in the current chord. Just click on a dot in the Intervals Display, and all the corresponding dots in the Main Display will be highlighted.

For example, if C major is the current chord, the intervals are root (C), 3rd (E) and perfect 5th (G). To highlight all the places on the fretboard where the perfect 5th note appears, click on it in the Intervals Display.

This can be useful when exploring big chords (eg. 13th chords), when the fretboard becomes a mass of dots, and you’d like to pick out all the occurrences of a particular interval.

Also, this mode can be used in combination with the voicing builder, to find the most suitable occurrence of an interval to include in your voicing. This is especially useful for finding the best occurrence of the root, for your voicing’s bass note.

Mode 3 - Voicing builder

Overview

With this mode, you can build your own voicing for any chord in any key. The button in the bottom-right corner of the screen allows you to choose the type of chord to build:

Standard lets you build a voicing for one of GCE’s 48 standard chords.
Custom lets you build a voicing for your own custom chord.

To build a voicing for a standard chord:

	Select the desired key and chord, by clicking on the corresponding buttons.
	Click on any green note in the Main Display to add it to your voicing (it will turn purple )
	Clicking on a purple note will remove it from your voicing.
	In the Intervals Display, notes that occur at least once in your voicing are purple , while notes that still need to be added are green .
	Once all notes in the Intervals Display are purple , you have a valid voicing!

While building a voicing, you may wish to use the interval highlighter to help you locate suitable occurrences of particular intervals. If you do change modes, GCE will remember your voicing, so you can continue building it when you return to this mode.

You might find this mode useful if you want to:

play a chord in an unusual position on the fretboard,
explore variations on a voicing that you already know,
check whether a particular voicing is valid/correct,
find voicings for use with a non-standard string tuning, or
find voicings for chords that aren’t included with GCE.

The lowest note (bass note) in a voicing should be the root note of the chord. For example, if you’re building a voicing for E minor, the bass note should be an E. If not, then you should really use the “chord/bass” notation for chords with altered bass notes. So if the bass note in your E minor voicing is a B, then the chord is called Em/B.

Mode 3 - Voicing builder

Custom chords

With this feature, you can create your own custom chords, and then build voicings for them. While in this special mode, a row of grey circles is added to the Intervals Display – this helps you to easily select the intervals you want:

To enter your custom chord:

	Select the chord’s key, by clicking on a key button.
	Click on the appropriate positions in the Intervals Display to add/remove intervals.
	If at any time, your custom chord matches one of GCE’s 48 standard chords, then its chord button will be highlighted in green .

Points to note:

You cannot enter duplicate intervals (eg. you can have the 2nd or the 9th interval, but not both).
The root interval must always be present (for this reason, you cannot enter the octave interval as well).

Once your custom chord is entered, you may build a voicing for it in the usual way, as if it were a standard chord.

Here are some custom chords to try:

Chord		Intervals
sus2/4		Root, 2, 4, 5
7b5/b9		Root, 3, b5, m7, b9
7b5/#9		Root, 3, b5, m7, #9
7#5/b9		Root, 3, #5, m7, b9
7#5/#9		Root, 3, #5, m7, #9
mmaj7b5		Root, m3, b5, 7
mmaj7#5		Root, m3, #5, 7
9b5		Root, 3, b5, m7, 9
9#5		Root, 3, #5, m7, 9

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

Overview

In this mode, you can enter some notes on the fretboard in the Main Display, and GCE will search through all available chords for your notes. While in this mode, a grid of grey circles is displayed on top of the fretboard – this helps you to easily select the notes you want.

The button in the bottom-right corner of the screen allows you to choose the search type:

An exact match search will return chords that contain exactly your notes – no additional notes, and no notes missing.
A fewer notes search will return chords that contain some of your notes, but not all of them.
An additional notes search will return chords that contain all your notes, plus some additional notes.

For example, if you enter the C major notes (C E G), some of the results for the different search types will be:

Exact match – C major – C E G
Fewer notes – C5 – C G
Additional notes – Cmaj7 – C E G B

To perform a search:

	Enter your notes, by clicking on the appropriate positions on the fretboard in the Main Display.
	Your selected notes will be coloured purple . To remove a note, click on it again.
	When a chord is found, its buttons will be highlighted...
	...and the chord’s remaining notes will be added to the fretboard.
	Click on the next/previous result arrow buttons to navigate through the search results.

	The Intervals Display will colour your search notes in purple .
	In fewer notes searches, yellow dots indicate notes that you entered, which don’t appear in the current chord.
	In additional notes searches, green dots indicate additional notes – they appear in the current chord, but not in your notes.

Once a result is displayed, GCE will automatically select its key and chord in the other three program modes. So you can immediately check the database for other voicings for your result, build your own alternative voicing, etc...

How to choose the most appropriate search type:

Use an exact match search to find a precise chord name for the notes you’ve entered.
Use a fewer notes search to find simpler chords contained within your notes.
Use an additional notes search to find chords that are based on your notes, but need extra notes to make them complete.

The latter two search types are also useful when no exact matches can be found (more details).

The search engine will match any inversion of a chord. For example, EGB, GBE and BEG will all match E minor.

You should always check whether the bass note of your voicing is the same as the root note of the chord matched. If not, then the search engine has matched an inversion of the chord displayed. In such cases, you should use the “chord/bass” notation to indicate that the bass note has been altered. For example, BEG should be called Em/B.

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

Multiple results in exact searches

Sometimes, a combination of notes will match more than one chord name in an “exact match” search. This is due to the fact that an inversion of one chord is often identical to another chord.

For instance, the chord shown on the left can either be called Esus4 or Asus2/E. In such cases, you need to decide which name is more appropriate (eg. in the context of a song).

Also, “add” chords will always be matched in pairs. For example, if an “add2” chord is matched, then the corresponding “add9” chord will be matched too, due to the fact that they contain identical notes. You should inspect your voicing, determine the distance (number of semitones) between the bass note and the added note, and then choose the correct name for the “add” chord (more details).

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

Organisation of results

In a fewer notes or additional notes search, the results are organised as follows:

Chords are sorted by ascending number of special notes. For instance:
- In a fewer notes search, all chords with 1 missing note are grouped together, and they come before chords with 2 missing notes.
- In an additional notes search, all chords with 1 extra note are grouped together, and they come before chords with 2 extra notes.
Results with the same number of special notes are sorted using the list of chords. For instance, a maj7 chord would come before a 7#5 chord.

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

No exact matches?

If an “exact match” search produces no results for your notes, there are several possible reasons:

Your chord might not be one of GCE’s 48 standard chords. If this is the case, you should try a fewer notes search. This will often help to reveal the underlying structure of your chord, making it easier to work out a suitable chord name.
Alternatively, your chord does match one of GCE’s chords, but it’s missing some notes. In this case, you should try an additional notes search, where the missing notes will be filled in.
It’s also possible that your chord will never match any of GCE’s chords in any way, because it’s just too unusual. In this case, you can inspect your chord’s structure manually.

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

Using “fewer notes” search

The following chord produces no matches when using an “exact match” search:

After switching to a “fewer notes” search, and navigating forwards through the results, we find one result is Am(add9). The Intervals Display shows:

The only missing note (in yellow ) is F, which is the #5 interval of the key of A. So one name for our chord could be:

Am(add9)(add#5)

Another result from the “fewer notes” search is Fmaj7. For this chord, the Intervals Display shows:

Here, the only yellow missing note is B, which is the b5 interval of the key of F. So another name for our chord could be:

Fmaj7(addb5)/A

Note that this is an inversion, because the bass note of our voicing is not F.

Continuing forward through the search results, the chords have fewer and fewer notes. So if you’re trying to work out an exact name for your chord, it’s usually best to only consider the first few results (with 1 or 2 missing notes).

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

Using “additional notes” search

The following chord produces no matches when using an “exact match” search:

After switching to an “additional notes” search, we find one result is D9. The Intervals Display shows:

Our voicing would exactly match D9 if the additional perfect 5th interval (in green ) was present.

In this case, the voicing is still valid, because the perfect 5th interval is optional in D9. This won’t always be the case, so you should always check whether the green additional notes in your search result are optional.

Note that 13th chords will never appear in the results of an “exact match” search, because only 6 of the 7 possible notes can be played simultaneously on a guitar. Only “additional notes” searches can match 13th chords.

Mode 4 - Chord search engine

Very unusual chords

Sometimes, a chord won’t produce any results, with any search type. If this happens, your chord is extremely unusual! For example:

However, there is a special option which allows you to guess the key of a chord, and then inspect the structure of the chord’s intervals.

Simply click on a key button (as if you wanted to do a restricted search), and look at the Intervals Display. This feature works in any of the 3 search types, whenever there are no search results.

Let’s guess that our weird chord above is in the key of E. So click on the E key button:

Now look at the Intervals Display:

We can see the following features:

We have the root and m3 intervals, so it could be a minor chord.
There is no perfect 5th interval (which is usually present in a minor chord).
The 2 and b9 intervals have been added.

So we could call this chord Em(no5)(add2)(addb9).

Miscellanous

Update history and visitor traffic

Click here for a graph of visitor traffic from November 2003 to now. Unfortunately, data is not available for the period from January to March 2007.

Date		Event
Oct 2007		Website hits reached 100,000 unique visitors.
Dec 2006		Website hits reached 75,000 unique visitors.
Feb 2006		Website hits reached 50,000 unique visitors.
9th Jan 2005		Website hits reached 20,000 unique visitors.
25th June 2004		Website hits reached 10,000 unique visitors.
18th Feb 2004		Website hits reached 5,000 unique visitors.
10th Feb 2004		Fixed a small bug – when clicking on a string tuning button for the first time since the program loaded, the corresponding string often didn’t highlight. Also, modified the browser status bar to display a warning if any images don’t load properly.
23rd Jan 2004		Updated chord database to 1,205 voicings.
23rd Dec 2003		Updated chord database to 1,136 voicings.
17th Dec 2003		Updated chord database to 1,088 voicings.
13th Dec 2003		Website hits reached 2,000 unique visitors.
8th Dec 2003		Updated chord database to 991 voicings.
4th Dec 2003		Improved the voicing builder custom chord mode – simplified the controls, and added some extra features.
25th Nov 2003		Added simple help text in the browser status bar for each mode.
24th Nov 2003		Converted entire chord database to a much more efficient format – now loads over 3 times faster!
17th Nov 2003		Graphics update – screen now redraws faster, shadows added to purple dots, clickable dots are now 3D.
15th Nov 2003		Updated chord database to 966 voicings.
9th Nov 2003		Fixed a bug which caused part of the display to be rendered incorrectly on some machines.
8th Nov 2003		Website hits reached 1,000 unique visitors.
18th Oct 2003		Updated chord database to 901 voicings.
15th Oct 2003		Updated chord database to 847 voicings.
14th Oct 2003		Graphics code completely rewritten and optimised. The program still looks the same, but it now loads almost 40% faster than before!
29th Sept 2003		Updated chord database to 796 voicings.
23rd Sept 2003		Added the custom chord feature of the voicing builder, and completed a major rewrite of the search engine (adding the fewer notes search type in the process).
20th Sept 2003		Updated chord database to 721 voicings.
18th Sept 2003		Updated chord database to 648 voicings.
17th Sept 2003		Updated chord database to 585 voicings.
9th Sept 2003		Website hits counter added.
5th Sept 2003		Updated chord database to 423 voicings.
24th August 2003		Updated chord database to 270 voicings.
14th August 2003		Updated chord database to 259 voicings.
7th August 2003		Updated chord database to 218 voicings.
6th August 2003		Updated chord database to 134 voicings.
1st August 2003		Updated chord database to 92 voicings.
29th July 2003		Chord database created, with 60 voicings.

Miscellanous

Linking to GCE

If you’d like to link to GCE from your own website, feel free to use one of the GIFs below. You may copy & paste the HTML code supplied, or write your own code.
		<a href="http://www.michael-hogg.co.uk/gce.php" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.michael-hogg.co.uk/images/content/gce/ad.gif" width="178" height="50" border="0" alt="Guitar Chord Explorer" title="Guitar Chord Explorer"></a>

		<a href="http://www.michael-hogg.co.uk/gce.php" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.michael-hogg.co.uk/images/content/gce/ad_small.gif" width="120" height="34" border="0" alt="Guitar Chord Explorer" title="Guitar Chord Explorer"></a>
If you would prefer a text link and description, then you could use the following:
	Guitar Chord Explorer -- a free online Java program/applet/tool which allows you to explore, search and build hundreds of guitar chords. Easy to use, with colour-coded displays. Features include a chord database/dictionary, a voicing builder, a powerful chord search engine, and more. Dual display -- fretboard and chord structure (intervals). Use any string tuning. Build unusual custom chords.