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Show HN: Guitar Dashboard – Open source music theory explorer for guitarists
- supernovae 8y agoFor those of us scrubs just learning guitar, do you have a guide on how to use this? or a link to a good guide?
- Roonerelli 8y agothere's a video in the Info menu
- supernovae 8y agofantastic, i'll go check it out
- throwaway8879 8y agoWhile these tools are useful, I recommend oldschool hard copy books to get started properly, if you're relatively serious about it. There are some great books for guitar put out by Berklee, I don't recall the names right now, but I do remember a series that had 4 books from intro to advanced. I spent a lot of years learning guitar technique while not progressing much on the music theory side until I started reading Mark Levine's Jazz theory book. It's probably the best material on music theory I've read, though it's slightly based on jazz, or at least references it a lot. But I think you could use it as a general theory guide. Another favorite of mine is Yusef Lateef's Chord and Melodic Patterns book, though it's more advanced/exploratory.
- supernovae 8y agoGot quite a collection of intro books, but nothing on theory really. I had hand surgery on my frett hand a few months ago and still do physical therapy twice a week - just now getting some strength back so while I recover, trying to learn more music theory since my practice sessions are limited by a screwed up hand. I tell ya what though, practicing guitar is better than most of my PT exercises :)
- throwaway8879 8y agoThat's alright, I've had to relearn my technique after a coma. It's easier the second time around. I really recommend doing legato exercises to strengthen the fretting-hand. Look up any neoclassical shred guitar book and they should have some guitar acrobatic exercise on legato. A good one is the Frank Gambale warmup instructoinal video. Another is a Paganini for guitar book put out by Greg Howe in the 90s if I recall correctly. I had a lot of fun learning the 24 caprices from that book. Definitely agree about the guitar practice being better than PT part. :)
- EADGBE 8y agoThe Speed Strategy books are really good as well (Chris Brooks). There is a neoclassical, and a sweep picking one as well.
- throwaway8879 8y agoThanks for the recommendation. I've just gone through his wiki page, and if Brett Garsed thinks he's great, I have to check him out.
- tomcam 8y agoWait. A coma? What happened? What has the journey back been like?
- byproxy 8y agoAre you familiar with Pat Martino? He has a similar story of having to start again from scratch.
- throwaway8879 8y agoMartino is perhaps my favorite guitar player and musician of all time. Was listening to his new record Formidable just earlier today! I'm familiar with his story although for him it was a brain/memory thing. While I retained all my theory/knowledge I had to train my muscle memory all over again. In his case, he had all the muscle memory but couldn't remember ever knowing how to play at all. I recall that he started learning again by listening to his own records!
- LargeWu 8y agoLevine is a great resource, but music theory, and jazz theory in particular, is a super dense subject. Having an experienced teacher to guide you through and help you internalize it is very valuable, even if it's only for the occasional lesson.
- throwaway8879 8y agoDefinitely agree about the teacher bit, if you can find a decent one, or can afford it. I find that sitting in or jamming, or even playing over standards is really helpful just to get things going. You have to remember that a lot of the jazz greats of the 20th century had little to no formal music education, let alone the complexities of jazz theory.
- yig 8y agoAre you referring to "A Modern Method for Guitar" by William Leavitt volumes 1-3?
- throwaway8879 8y agoYep, that's the one!
- purple-dragon 8y agoI'd recommend the Hook Theory "books" (there are two volumes). I put the word book in quotes because they are available as both interactive ebooks, i.e., Kindle & iBook, and mobile applications, i.e., iOS & Android. The authors do a nice job of introducing basic (and then advanced) music theory concepts with text and audio/video examples using recognizable pop songs. They also have some tools for exploring themes further on their website. I've read the books a couple times and it has given me the ability to reason about existing songs as well as better compose and improvise with songs myself.
- mikehadlow 8y agoI'd agree. For beginners, Guitar Dashboard is probably overkill. I really wrote it for people like me, who'd been playing guitar for a while and know all the basic chords, but want to get deeper into the underlying theory.
- supernovae 8y agoTo be honest, i'm glad i took the weekend to learn it. Chords make sense to me now because of this.
- yesenadam 8y agoAnother perspective: Jazz pianist here. I looked at Mark Levine's book when I was in my early/mid 20s, by then I already knew everything in it - and I'd learnt almost all of it from the music, from the greats. I don't believe in (theory) books, or teachers, really. I don't wish I'd read that book before I knew any of it. I played classical for years as a kid, then played any songs I could get my hands on - folk songs, pop, Beatles etc. So I learnt basic chords and how they work by playing that stuff a lot. Then when I got into jazz, you learn by listening and transcribing. Transcribing tunes, solos, chord voicings, anything. All different instruments. I've transcribed piano, trumpet, sax, guitar, bass, drums.. and Indian classical, funk, reggae etc. Anything you hear and like but don't know what it is, transcribe it, and learn to play it yourself. (If it's simple enough, you don't need to write it out) You learn a lot of things by doing that. There are books of transcribed solos, I think they're absolutely worthless. Do it yourself. Besides that, books of songs, solos etc always have mistakes, sometimes a few, sometimes thousands. I've written out orchestral scores to play on piano, studied those. I studied/played/sang Debussy's opera for over a year, that felt like a complete musical education, a lot of it is simple combinations of notes. In my 20s I learnt a lot about what pianos can do by playing a lot of piano pieces by Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov etc. Also playing other instruments is good - I've spent a fair bit of time playing drums, bass, guitar, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, etc. Also learning who the great musicians are is invaluable, so you can find who appeals to you most. Check out a lot of different stuff. Study, analyze, learn from the music you listen to and love. All that is so much easier since the internet! (I started in the 80s) It should all be a great joy. I enjoyed every minute of it.
- falcolas 8y agoWhat most articles and books I've read on the subject recommend: Learn to strum with rhythm. Learn the scales. Learn the chords. Play things that let you have fun, even while nailing down the basics.
- jimmy1 8y agoThe best ones I have read take it a little closer to the guitar: "Learn the freboard" Learn why the freboard is the way it is, why it is tuned the way it is, why no one for hundreds of years has been able to come up with a better tuning system -- then learning rhythm, chords and scales will be a bonus side effect. The very excellent book "Fretboard Logic" takes this approach
- falcolas 8y agoNot to disagree with your points, but a brief aside you made me think of: The fretboard in its current incarnation works well for western music, at the cost of being quite poor at playing for middle-eastern and eastern music. There have been attempts to address this with microtonal fretboards (which are complicated), but most often they use fretless necks (which are available for guitars and basses). So, as with all things, the fretboard evolved in a route that favored local optimizations.
- IggleSniggle 8y agoYour comment is optimized for my local appreciation. Well said.
- kazinator 8y agoThe basic idea: fret a string on one of the indicated spots in the diagram, pluck a string. Then pick another one, and do the same thing; now you have a melody starting. Moving on: divide that pattern into interlocking "boxes", and memorize the fingering pattern for each box, and how it dovetails with the adjacent boxes. Some boxes have a transition where there are two notes per string; this is good for staying in a tight position, without much finger stretch. Three-note-per-string boxes are good for shredding. If you have this overall pattern memorized and well rehearsed under your fingers, you can easily improvise to most music (at least that with Western roots around diatonic scales). Listen to the track and play a few notes by ear. Within a bar or two, it's obvious which pattern you are in and from there you know the rest of the picture instantly, and can "break out" all over the fretboard.
- mikehadlow 8y agoMy favourite book on music theory is 'Songwriting Secrets of The Beatles' by Dominic Pedler. The title doesn't do it justice. It's a magnificent treatise on music theory and song writing using the Beatles songs as examples. If you're a Beatles fan like me, it's a must read!
- bjelkeman-again 8y agoIf you like playing electric guitar, then Rocksmith should be part of your learning tools. Much more fun imho than any of the other methods, well except for being part of an actual rock-band. https://rocksmith.ubisoft.com/ https://rocksmith.ubisoft.com/
- wyclif 8y agoRichard Lloyd (formerly the guitarist for the proto-punk band Television) has a few great lessons on YouTube that teach theory and the circle of fifths very effectively: https://youtu.be/mNmEq-cP9Oo https://youtu.be/mNmEq-cP9Oo https://youtu.be/9lSifKZ80H4 https://youtu.be/9lSifKZ80H4 https://youtu.be/fjWFqz1Sjps https://youtu.be/fjWFqz1Sjps Lloyd is a bit eccentric in person and in his methods—he's very opinionated, but IMO that's one of the things that makes him a great guitar teacher.
- DuckTyping 8y agoThis is amazing, thank you! I've been playing guitar for a while now and am now beginning to understand the importance of theory, but I'm kind of at a loss on how to go about learning and applying it. Does anyone have a book/mooc that they'd recommend with lots of exercises and accompanying songs? I've gone through a few sources but most of them relate everything to a piano. I understand the underlying theory is mostly the same but I feel like I would internalize it better seeing it on a fretboard.
- throwaway8879 8y agoI had a collection of hundreds of guitar books at one point I think, though that was a while ago. I've made another comment here - the Berklee modern method books are great for guitar. Also, learn a ton of songs if you can. There's no better way to work on technique than learning songs. I can suggest specific books if you mention what style of guitar you're learning to play...
- DuckTyping 8y agoI'll take a look at the Berklee modern books. I'm mostly interested in jazz/funk, I know jazz especially can be very difficult theory wise.
- throwaway8879 8y agoAnother thing, I really do recommend learning music theory on the piano/keys as well as your primary instrument. Doesn't have to be a fancy keyboard, any cheap midi thing just to visualise the way the way chords and scales are structured. I've found that learning other instruments become a lot easier once you know a little bit of theory and how they're laid out on a keyboard.
- garrettdc 8y agoThis is really good advice. With all the different places you can play the same note on guitar, it makes it a little more difficult to visualize. The one note to one key ratio can help to make things like chord structures and inversions make a lot more sense.
- colospoin 8y agoNo real comment, other than to say thanks! This looks very useful.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- AndyPandy 8y agoThis tool looks amazing and I will certainly be using it! One request would be to allow custom tunings. All of the tunings I use are not listed, and transposing as I go makes it a little harder to use.
- vbsteven 8y agoI will spend some time on this later next week. At first glance my preferred D standard tuning (DGCFAD) does not seem to be available.
- zen3d 8y agoDitto for "Open D minor (DADFAD)" tuning that I use. Being able to set up an arbitrary tuning would serve this purpose as well, although I suspect generalizing that function might be more work than it is worth. It would also be nice to see other scales, such as major and minor pentatonic and blues scales. I've used jguitar.com in the past for this sort of thing, but I really like visual aspect and unity of guitardashboard. Nice work!
- asaph 8y ago+1 for mentioning https://jguitar.com/ https://jguitar.com/ which I created.
- zen3d 8y agoThere aren't a lot of tools for exploring fingering for non-standard tunings, and jguitar.com has served my explorations for the past couple of years. jguitar.com is also very comprehensive in terms of chord fingering, scales, etc. One major difference between jquitar.com and guitardashboard.com is that the facets (tuning, chords, scales, etc.) are separated from one other on jguitar.com, whereas guitardashboard.com tries to place them all onto a single screen. My initial reaction to guitardashboard.com is that this approach does succeed. However, jguitar.com has more to offer in total. My thanks to both authors for helping us explorers of alternate tunings. Any help we can get is appreciated.
- BookPage 8y agoI haven't used D standard, but it looks like regular EADGBD tuned a whole step down. So you could basically use that tuning on the site and just select the key a whole step below what you want, and it will align on your fretboard properly, as a workaround.
- 8y ago
- alfonsodev 8y agoGreat job! One idea: Have some tracks ( from Spotify api?) to play along that matches the selected scales. I've found that playing on top of songs works pretty well, improvising up and down is very easy if you are playing the safe notes of the scale, finding how the singing melody fits the scale, then how the solo fits the scale..etc is a funnier way to memorise the scale.
- mikehadlow 8y agoI've found a looper pedal a fantastic tool for learning theory. Play some chords from a particular scale, then try improvising over it. You get a real feel for how the different modes sound.
- byproxy 8y agoYou might wanna give this a go: https://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/ https://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/
- mrbad101 8y agoJust wanted to say thank you as well for this. Great tool! What are you future plans for it?
- mikehadlow 8y agoRight now, I just want more people to know about it and get some good feedback on what works and what doesn't. I'd be super happy if guitar teachers and other music educators pick up on it. It'd be great if I got some good pull-requests too. I'd like to make more YouTube videos, relating Guitar Dashboard to the theory and showing some examples. I'm not a keyboard player, but Piano Dashboard seems like an obvious addition :)
- drblast 8y agoGreat job on this, it's an excellent visualisation.
- sixstringtheory 8y agoAwesome project, thank you to the author! I see a lot of folks asking about resources to learn the ideas in this tool, so I’ll recommend the Guitar Grimoire series. Granted they are more reference-type books, but each one has a good introductory chapter that I found taught the theory in an accessible way to me. I picked up the Scales volume first and have gathered more over the years, like the practice exercise edition, but don’t use them much these days (it’s been like 15 years now :)
- jMyles 8y agoVery interesting and pretty tool! I wonder: on the "scales" dropdown, why didn't you include pentatonic? It's so prevalent across so many styles of music; it seems like a must.
- wwarren 8y agoI guess the minor pentatonic is just Aeolian without the 2 and the 6, but I agree.
- meggar 8y agoIt's also Dorian and Phrygian without the 2 and 6. Plus you can use it in other keys, the A Pentatonic in the key of Bb is lydian, in G it's dorian, in C it's major, etc..
- mikehadlow 8y agoThat's a very good question. I had plans to add major and minor pentatonic scales until it became clear that they way they are used, especially in rock and other blues based music is a subset of dorian modes. There's some real insight to be gained, especially with regards to harmony, or more practically, what chords you can play against a major or minor pentatonic. It's a lot more than one would think! So, to answer your question, I'm not going to add pentatonic scales, but I do plan to record a video showing how GD can give you some really cool insight into how they work harmonically.
- markatto 8y agoHow about an option to overlay the pentatonic scales over other scales, similarly to the way you color the root notes but with a different color? You could use a similar idea to overlay root-third-fifth or other chords. I think this would be useful for those of us who are still trying to build muscle memory, but still present information in a way that minimizes "stuck thinking."
- criddell 8y agoI agree with you. It's prevalent and is also one of the very first thing most guitar players learn. It definitely feels like it should be a prominent part of the UI and not just hidden away in some video.
- wwarren 8y agoReally awesome, thank you so much!
- BookPage 8y agoI always wanted something like this. Previously I'd set up custom spreadsheets to do the fretboard highlighting like you have. Fantastic work and great effort - thank you!
- akuji1993 8y agoI really really like this and will for sure use it! Thank you for this!
- nickporter 8y agoVery cool project, thanks for making this!
- jihadjihad 8y agoThis is absolutely fantastic. I've lost my guitar teacher's notes where he wrote out the modal scale patterns, and the ones online are not good for developing this kind of intuition. Perfect example of just the right amount of information while still remaining simple to digest. A+
- osteele 8y agoThis is great! A suggestion: show pitch constellations[1]. Piano/violin music theorists have written me that these were helpful in [2]. (I'd offer you code, but it's so ancient that it's probably not helpful :-( ) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_circle#Pitch_constellation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_circle#Pitch_constel... [2] http://osteele.github.io/fingerboard/ http://osteele.github.io/fingerboard/
- GitRHero 8y agoJust a heads up that your fingerboard app seems to be working incorrectly regarding displaying the names of sharps and flats on the fretboard diagram (in some cases). For example, if I load the page and immediately click on an Eb on the piano, the fingerboard layout is correct, and the correct scale degrees are highlighted, but Eb are labeled as Db in the fretboard diagram. Similarly Bb are labelled as Abm etc. It seems like you just switched the sharp/flat symbol without also switching the note letter. Otherwise awesome tool, this will be very useful for me!
- mirkules 8y agoHeh, I am reminded of a little exploration I did a few years ago: http://mirkules.com/blog/music-theory-for-guitar/ http://mirkules.com/blog/music-theory-for-guitar/ I wish I had this tool back then!
- plainOldText 8y agoNicely done! Finally a proper aid for learning the fretboard.
- johnnyb128 8y agoJust wanted to say thanks for this, it looks great and operates great. Really nicely done, I'll be using this quite a bit and will provide feedback if there is any.
- mikehadlow 8y agoJust a heads up that I also blogged about the making of Guitar Dashboard: http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-i-learned-creating-guitar.html http://mikehadlow.blogspot.com/2018/09/what-i-learned-creati...
- erAck 8y agoLovely. Thanks!
- blockchaincloud 8y agoCan you explain what you mean by this- > If you choose the frequency 440hz, jump down one 7-semitone step and up 5, you have an A major scale Also I have one more question about - when making chords using the 3rd and 5th step, for a note on the right boundary of this n <-> 2n interval, I would jump into 2n <-> 4n interval, right? But I'd I were not using chords then is "all" (simplified) music made in only only one x <-> 2x range and it's not crossed? Another question- why do pianos have different black and white keys? Do you plan on doing a blog post that explains how "your " explanation of music theory fits various instruments? I've always wanted to understand music from a mathematical perspective and your post was eye opening! I am going to try out your tool once I get hold of a computer.
- steamer25 8y agoEach doubling of frequencies is divided into twelve somewhat evenly-spaced semitones. If you go up seven out of twelve (using index 0 for your initial frequency), that's essentially half way to the doubling of the frequency with a ratio of 3:2. E.g., if your starting frequency is 440, going up seven steps will give you a note with a frequency of 660. Another way of dividing up the space between a frequency and it's doubling uses eight of the twelve semi-tone divisions . The eight notes form an 'OCTive'. The octive has a 1-based index for the starting frequency. You can see seven out of twelve highlighted notes in the dashboard circles . The eighth note has the same name as the first one as you complete the circle but it would either be double or half the frequency. Going up seven semi-tones using the twelve division 'chromatic' scale is the same as going up five steps in the more selective eight note octive scale. Yes, the circle continues from 2n<->4n and 4n<->8n and n/2<->n and n/4<->n/8 etc. The boundaries are those of human hearing from about 20hz to 20khz. The white keys on a piano are the key of C Major. The black keys are the 'accidental' notes--the five notes of the twelve division chromatic scale that are discarded when selecting the notes for the eight (7 + the 1st/8th note that is counted twice to complete the circle) note octive.
- slantedview 8y agoThis is wonderful. Is there anything like this for piano?
- radiowave 8y agoLefty here. The options to flip the fretboard and the nut are much appreciated. How about introducing another shading for the 3rd and 5th notes, so that the relationship between the scales and the chord shapes becomes more apparent?
- thedjinn 8y agoLooks decent. I would suggest adding more tunings for us metal players that play lower tunings (for example, I play 2 whole steps down)
- bcheung 8y agoThis is very nice. If I might add a suggestion, it takes a while to fine the number of the chord. For example, if I'm trying to figure out what 1-4-5-1 would be, I have to hunt until I find the 4 and 5. Would be cool if there was another view that was the Nashville number system in sequence to make it quicker to find. For example: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 C D E F G A B
- guitar11 8y agothe only problem with all of this is that you must ingest the entirety of the information before becoming unconsciously competent. Do you think skilled guitarists actually think about this while they play? It's a complete flow state; prefrontal activity just shuts it down.
- BookPage 8y agoHonestly I like seeing the fretboard patterns to identify funky triads or strange chord fingering patterns. It's especially useful for when you change tunings to something you've not used
- cjhanks 8y agoThere are different stages of composition in music. By the time you're playing music, you ideally should not think this way. But it's nice to have a visual way of seeing substitutions that work with your progression as you write music. Having an enumeration of all of the possible voicings is really nice. When I looked at this (as a bass player), I didn't even really notice the fret board. This application is applicable to all instruments.
- 3pt14159 8y agoThis is really great! It would be cool if you supported a kapo and turning it flat. That way I could tune it to e flat without having to do the mental math, and I could put the kapo on whatever fret so I could visually see quickly. Super awesome work!
- jjkmk 8y agoThe Modes should be in order, Ionian - I Dorian - ii Phrygian - iii Lydian - IV Mixolydian - V Aeolian - vi Locrian - vii Otherwise its a really useful tool, great job.
- petersellers 8y agoThat was my main complaint as well.
- djaychela 8y agoI don't agree - the modes are presented here in the order of change from the major scale, which I've found is often the best way to get people to understand how they work. One man's method, etc...
- jjkmk 8y agoThe Major scale is Ionian (the first mode). What do you mean order of change from Major scale, wouldn't it start from Ionian (I)?
- s_m 8y agoThis is really cool!
- tmpmov 8y agoFantastic work. I've been learning music theory off and on to help with my guitar. I was hoping for a whole lot of interactive applications like yours, but found most lacking for me, though I did find a few on the iPhone: FretTrainer for muscle memory stuff. I figure out what to learn next based on Musicopoulus. Both are fair, each with quarks. I've bookmarked you in my, just created, music "Toby" folder. Speaking of which, here's one last app recommendation that's totally unrelated: if you don't already have an extension for bookmark management on your computer, consider "Toby." It's a decent one for chrome, I use it as I have way too many normal bookmarks and finding stuff via scrolling becomes painful. I'd be interested if anyone else is using a different bookmark extension for Chrome as well. Great job again!
- hyyypr 8y agoRegarding Toby, how confident are you that it is not another case of “you’re the product”? I still need to dig into their extension code to see how chatty it is, their FAQ doesn’t mention how data is synced to their servers.
- tmpmov 8y agoFrankly, I'm totally clueless. It might be an interesting exercise to see what they're doing.
- djaychela 8y agoLooks very good - I'll get a chance to look properly on a laptop tomorrow. One thing I'd like is the ability to do 9 string tuning - I have a 9,and yet to get seriously into it, partly because it's so easy to get lost and I'm yet to get on top of the patterns that I already know well on a 6 string... I know it's the same intervals as the bottom 4 strings of a 6 string, but seeing the patterns would help, I think. But as its open source, I guess I should do it myself!
- cjhanks 8y agoVery nicely done.
- andrewcarter 8y agoReally cool tool! I've been getting into more theory stuff after playing guitar for quite a while, so it's awesome timing! Thanks!
- fromMars 8y agoWow. This is great. I play left-handed, in fourths tuning and these visualizations are amazing. Consider adding chords, too!
- sibeliuss 8y agoBravo man! This is an incredible resource.
- beeskneecaps 8y agoAnimated arpeggios on the fretboard view please!
- markbnj 8y agoVery well done.
- kgwxd 8y agoOh my g o s h, it works with all my crazy custom FF privacy config stuff, this is awesome! I've never heard of "N Minor" and searching doesn't bring up anything. Is that a mistake?
- bhrgunatha 8y agoNatural minor scale as opposed to harmonic or melodic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale
- openloop 8y agoThis is awesome.
- mikeyvxt 8y agoThis is great! I'm not actually sure how prominent the CAGED sequence is in guitarist circles, but I was thinking it might be helpful to indicate the chord shapes. Hope you can continue hosting it - I might use this to practice my scale visualization.
- sampo 8y ago> it might be helpful to indicate the chord shapes You can select notes on the innermost ring in the circles. For example, select G as the base in the middle ring. Then select 1, M3 and 5 on the innermost ring. The fretboard will show you all the possible ways to finger the G major chord.
- jmfayard 8y agoCan you add a settings to display notes in their true poetic name (do re mi fa sol la so do) instead of the boring Anglo Saxon variant (abcdecg)?
- brickmort 8y agofantastic!
- Theo59 8y agoYears ago I went to a talk on Neo-Riemannian theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Riemannian_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Riemannian_theory is a bit lacking of a simple explanation, but the basic idea is that chord groups (e.g. Minor chords) are represented as a algebra (e.g. x, x+5, x+7) and then the chords can all be mapped on a big torus (donut) to represent transposition, and each chord connects with 2 others that just so happen to correspond with 'complimentary' chords from traditional music theory. And there are also different ways to connect to other chord groups. Beethoven's 9th Symphony famously traces 19 of the 24 possible chords of the torus, and remember that he was partially deaf so relied on vibrations. More interesting that all this however is a new instrument called the 'Fluid Piano' which doesn't restrict itself to Western tuning (multiples of 440Hz etc.) Check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Cq3pbcMkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Cq3pbcMkI Music from the country Georgia can't be represented using on traditional musical staves. I'd be fascinated to understand how so different musical cultures developed, particularly in relationship to how our brains might have evolved over the year to regard certain frequencies and melodies as delightful, eerie, etc.
- zdk 8y agoDamn, this is what I'm looking for. Excellent visualization! Thank you.
- uglycoyote 8y agoVery cool. I've also had a side-project developing something similar for a while: http://sonicpines.com/fretboard http://sonicpines.com/fretboard I keep being surprised at people having the same idea e.g., see also Grunfy's post from a few months ago. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17272516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17272516 He has some very nice stuff there. My work-in-progress is also derived from "first principles", although I haven't bothered to try adding alternate tunings yet. Mostly my focus has been on using it to aid learning improvisation, so one feature i added to my little app was the ability to set up a particular chord pattern on the fretboard and "save" it, so that you can have several different diagrams on the screen at once, e.g., one for each of the three chords in a 3-chord song. Like you, I also have been using Typescript and SVG, but not D3 (just drawing SVG elements directly using React seems to work well enough for my purposes)