GTK - Guitar Player's Toolkit

During the many phases of my guitar playing journey, I used a number of tools, theory books, tuners, metronomes, practice techniques, and information to help me get my head around some of the concepts like chord composition, triads, scales, modes, transpositions, or working out what a chord looks like on a fretboard.

Despite being a much better guitarist than I was, I built these tools because I still use them. Now you get to use them too.

The Guitar Player's Toolkit includes the following tools:

Chord Theory

1) Chord Master

• A comprehensive chord library containing around 3600 chords.

• Create custom chords

• Know where to put the fingers, but don't know the name? Use this tool

• Know the notes, but don't know the name? Use this tool.

• Use the triad library to learn the finger positions across different string sets, inversions, and starting frets

• use the key based diatonic progressions library to help with song writing and melody construction

• All chords can be played with guitar accurate sounds to suit Nylon, Classical, and Steel strings.

2) Scales

• Show notes across every key - major, minor, diminished, augmented, but also modes, pentatonics, blues, jazz, Arabic / middle eastern, exotic, symmetrical, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and so on.

• Compare up to 4 scales, triads, or chords at once on a single, colour-coded fretboard in Scale Sharing, with shared notes marked and notes of interest highlighted.

• See diatonic chords for scales that have them (Major/Minor and modes, Harmonic Minor/Major, Melodic Minor), and explore a triad library across different string sets and inversions for any chord progression you build

• For scales with a diatonic chord sequence, toggle between the scale's note description and its chord sequence

3) Position Finder

• Want to play a scale in a specific key, but at a place in the fretboard that suits you?

• Want to play without having to slide your hand up and down the fretboard?

• This tool shows you the notes in the scale, and where they sit on the fretboard around the fret you choose — so you can play in position without sliding your hand up and down the neck. Toggle between key context and mode context to quickly see how the same shape works across different modes.

4) Chord Transposer

• Sometimes a song includes chords that you either don't like, or don't suit your voice. Use this tool to transpose all chords to a different key, or just recalculate them using a capo

5) Circle of Fifths

• Invaluable for song writing - shows the relationship between keys and chords and also allows you to work with modes.

6) Mode converter

• Convert from one musical mode to another, in any key.

Practice tools:

7) Note Practice

• Use this to learn where every note is on the fretboard

• Set a tempo/pace to practice at. Choose the strings, notes, and enharmonic format, and you'll be given a note and a string number to play.

• Hear the note and compare it to what you hear on your guitar. See the note on the fretboard to help you learn.

• Start with a single string, and work up to string pairs or collections.

8) Triad Practice

• Triads are 3 notes that make up chords. Learn these across string sets, and extend your mastery of the fretboard.

• Like Note Practice - pick your chords, string set, type of chord (Maj/Min/Aug/Dim), an inversion (Root/1st/2nd), and a tempo.

• Hear the chord/triad and compare it to what you hear on your guitar. See the triad on the fretboard to help you learn.

• Start with a single string set, Maj/Min and increase the complexity in terms of diminished/augmented, and multiple string sets

Practical

9) Tuner

• A chromatic tuner to identify what note is being played. Use this to tune your guitar to whatever tuning scheme suits you

10) Metronome

• Provide a regular beats per minute and beats per measure. You can also manually tap a tempo to match a beat in your head.