Introducing Guitar Dashboard. A free, open source, interactive music theory explorer for guitarists.

MikeH · September 2017

I'd like to share something I've been working on: guitardashboard.com. It's something I've built initially to aid my own study of diatonic modes and chords on the guitar, but I'm also hoping that others might find it useful. Some features:

A chromatic circle and a circle of fifths for visualising scales and modes.
A guitar fretboard that displays scales and modes. You can opt to display note names or scale intervals, just select the 'settings' menu.
Toggle notes on the circle-of-fifths and fretboard.
Alternative tunings and instruments. Any stringed instrument with any tuning is potentially supported. Just select the 'tunings' menu.
Left handed players are welcome. Also in the 'settings' menu.

I'm self taught when it comes to music theory, so I'd really like to hear any comments, bugs, suggestions. It's open source on GitHub with an MIT licence, so feel free to take the code and use it for your own purposes. Send me a pull-request if you're of the programmerish persuasion. Links under the 'info' menu.

Enjoy! Mike

MikeH · September 2017

Woops, I seem to have posted several copies of this by mistake. Is there anyway to delete posts?

viz · September 2017

Very nice!

Roland · September 2017

MikeH said:

Woops, I seem to have posted several copies of this by mistake. Is there anyway to delete posts?

Done

superanand · June 2020

This platform is an amazing one.. Took me a few days to navigate the whole website and post that thought of thanking you for sharing this platform.. Till date I was using Guitaa and was pretty satisfied with that but your suggestion is also great. Like I tried this song https://www.guitaa.com/chords/powfu-death-bed at guitar dashboard & it also gave me the same experience.

Thanks..

JAYJO · June 2020

Brilliant. Can change to lefty in the settings. Will have a look at vid later cheers.

DiscoStu · June 2020

Looks good @MikeH however the layout looks wrong on my Android phone. The dials are vertical rather than left and right like on your video. Maybe needs a wee tweak to open full screen on phones? Screenshots of portrait and landscape orientations:

https://i.imgur.com/5LZoIR8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/nPuOD7M.jpg

nick79 · June 2020

As someone who shamefully knows very little or nothing about theory this is going to be a huge help I reckon. Thank you very much!

GuyBoden · June 2020

Excellent, wow you have alternative tunings too.

Scale name, which is the most common terminology, is it Jazz minor or Melodic minor (ascending)?

Fuengi · June 2020

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

viz · June 2020

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

viz · June 2020

viz said:

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

OR,

if you know your circle of 5ths and fi d your key, you can immediately find chords 4 and 5 (left and right of your key, and chord 6 (the related minor of your key, and chords 2 and 3 (left and right of the relative minor), and chord 7 is one more to the right.

So, for C:

IV is left (F)
V is right (G)

vi is underneath (A minor)
ii is left (D minor)
iii is right (E minor)

vii is B dim.

https://i.imgur.com/a6F98YN.jpg

mrkb · June 2020

viz said:

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

I think of them in relation to the fretboard. I use low E string as reference. Find the root note on E string, IV chord is same fret on A string (so A major in your case, V chord is up two frets on A string, so B major In your case). As this aligns with the major scale shapes, and makes you learn the note names on first two strings it works for me. The pattern is also a L7 shape for defining major and minor chords, so it’s very easy.

https://youtu.be/qoeQeVVys38

Fuengi · June 2020

viz said:

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

Really!? That always works? I had not figured that out.

viz · June 2020

Fuengi said:

viz said:

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

Really!? That always works? I had not figured that out.

well, ish, so long as you know your keys and put the correct sharp or flat there. So the 4th of F isn't B, it's Bb. etc. But otherwise, yes, in 100% of cases, the interval from a key note can be counted synonomously with the alphabet in either direction.

Fuengi · June 2020

viz said:

Fuengi said:

viz said:

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

Really!? That always works? I had not figured that out.

well, ish, so long as you know your keys and put the correct sharp or flat there. So the 4th of F isn't B, it's Bb. etc. But otherwise, yes, in 100% of cases, the interval from a key note can be counted synonomously with the alphabet in either direction.

I could never work out why there were sharps and flats and they were the same note, is this why?

I have sort of ignored flats up to now... This has got me looking at circle of 5th again and I can now see how useful it is.

viz · June 2020

Fuengi said:

viz said:

Fuengi said:

viz said:

Fuengi said:

Thanks for this, has got my mind back into theory.

Is there a quick and easy way to work out the chords for the Major scale. Say I'm playing E Maj how do I know what my IV chord is?

Alphabet

Really!? That always works? I had not figured that out.

well, ish, so long as you know your keys and put the correct sharp or flat there. So the 4th of F isn't B, it's Bb. etc. But otherwise, yes, in 100% of cases, the interval from a key note can be counted synonomously with the alphabet in either direction.

I could never work out why there were sharps and flats and they were the same note, is this why?

I have sort of ignored flats up to now... This has got me looking at circle of 5th again and I can now see how useful it is.

Sort of! This might deserve a more detailed discussion though!

duotone · June 2020

Thanks for that circle of fifths @viz ;;

I am currently trying: https://spinditty.com/learning/disharmony
3. Standard Chord Progressions: A Song Your Mother Would Know

I always thought I wasn’t getting the most out of that wheel.
Edit: should say that I would just noodle, playing chords that were close together on the wheel that sounded ok + ‘safe’. Not very adventurous!

viz · June 2020

There’s a really good youtube vid called 8 things you didn’t know about the circle of fifths or something.

viz · June 2020

https://youtu.be/50CpDZvTWks

viz · June 2020

Fact 2 is really helpful for many.

duotone · June 2020

viz said:

Fact 2 is really helpful for many.

Thanks again @viz ;;;;;;
makes it mush easier/faster to navigate with the triangles
1. 6
4 5. And 2 3

I stopped at No.2, but will watch the rest of the video.

viz · June 2020

Yes. And what about this:

1 (ionian) is the relative major of 6 (aeolian)

but also:
4 (lydian) is the relative major of 2 (dorian) - they both have a raised note;

and 5 (mixolydian) is the relative major of 3 (phrygian) - they both have a lowered note.

JiJoe · August 2020

That's fantastic Mike - thanks very much indeed for sharing this. Really like the way you've done this visualization.

satg64 · August 2020

Guitar dashboard & Mike H. This is the best. Absolutely Brilliant. Please can you tell me how to edit/ input harmonic Major scale? Thanks SG

m0rt · August 2020

This is a wonderful resource! thank you for making this publically accessible....

Hattigol · August 2020

Great this. Thanks very much.

LewisJ · September 2020

Dude, great work. There are apps available that provide similar resources but a. they are not free and b. they often don't include the alternative tunings. Saved to favourites and will be used regularly!!

Chris.B · September 2020

This is a great tool to help me in getting to grips with the circle of 5ths - thank you for developing and sharing it.

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Introducing Guitar Dashboard. A free, open source, interactive music theory explorer for guitarists.

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