nowfound

Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to I made a tool for learning scales, chords, and how to combine them

This started out when I vibe-coded a guitar scale fingering generator. It came out pretty good, and I started adding stuff to it: chords, then how chords and scales interact. Then I added charts for other instruments I mess around with: piano, cello, alto recorder. There's a complexity toggle to go from basic harmony to extended/experimental stuff. It's honestly still mostly a toy, but I thought other people might be interested in playing with it. Source is on github, so it's easy enough to run locally and fork. https://github.com/aleshh/gtr-scales

This tool helps musicians learn scales, chords, and their relationships across multiple instruments including guitar, piano, cello, and alto recorder. It displays fingering charts and shows how scales and chords… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1

    A free, open source, music theory explorer for guitarists. Discover how scales and modes map to the fretboard and how chords work within scales.

    2018 · guitardashboard.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    python framework for creating music applications. Contribute to synestematic/kord development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Play a free virtual guitar online with your keyboard or by touch. Slow songs down and see every chord, string and strum. Acoustic, classic, electric and bass.

    10d ago · guitoro.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    I built a free, browser-based tool for exploring scales, modes, and their diatonic chords. Pick any root note and scale (major, natural minor, all seven modes, and 70+ other scales) and instantly see which chords (triads, 7th, 9th, etc.) belong to that key. It also includes a built-in sequencer so if you've found interesting chords for your scale, you can arrange them into a progression and hear how they flow together. No need to switch between a theory reference and a DAW just to test whether a ii–V–I sounds right in your preferred scale. No signup, no ads, no paywall, just a tool I wished…

    Feb 2026 · interactivechordfinder.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Hello HN, I just released this music theory and ear training mobile app for guitar which I've been working on for a bit more than a year on the side. The idea was to make something for the eternally "intermediate" guitarist (myself included). There are a lot of beginner apps which rely on learning songs, toolkits which give you a bunch of stuff with no explanation but not many in-between apps to actually learn and practice more generic and somewhat advanced stuff. The app contains short lessons, recaps and most importantly challenges (visual, audio and pure theory) along with a very complete…

    2025 · cadenceguitar.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    Guitar scale diagrams and charts, with color CAGED shapes for pentatonic, blues, major and minor scales.

    2018 · grunfy.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    I'm excited to share with HN a new pet project I've been working on to explore how AI can create and explain harmonic chord progressions - Chord Variations. The project uses GPT-4 to generate unique and interesting chord combinations based on user input chord progression. It's akin to having a virtual musical assistant that can help non-musicians and musicians alike explore and create harmonious sound without needing any prior knowledge of music theory. The generated chord suggestions maintain a similar vibe to the user input. Alternative chord progression includes extended chords, chord…

    2023 · chord-alt.vercel.app · its alternatives →

  8. 8
    LightNote▲242

    An interactive site to learn the basics of music theory 🎶

    2016 · lightnote.co · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    🎹 Memorize piano scales with ease! A piano practice program w/ MIDI support. Consider it an interactive reference manual - ZaneH/piano-trainer

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10SH
  11. 11HT

    An interactive audio guide with guitars and a little music theory.

    2018 · mathisonian.github.io · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Searchable library of over 6000 different scales

    2020 · solfej.io · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Hi, I'm Sergei, the creator of Guitartonic. I've been playing guitar for 17 years, but never really learned how to improvise. Most of the elaborate music theory PDFs I found online overwhelmed me, so I built a simple tool to practice basic scales and modes. It worked so well that it even inspired my roommate to pick up his guitar again. The app has been live for a few months. I had moved on to other projects and almost forgot Guitartonic existed, until the website started getting organic traffic. I noticed that people were coming to the site (somehow, 90% of the traffic is direct) and…

    2024 · guitartonic.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14AS

    Hi Hacker News, I've created Chord Nebula, a simple web-based game designed to help users learn and practice piano chords, basic progressions, and harmony fundamentals. The game integrates with MIDI keyboards, allowing you to play chords in real-time and receive immediate feedback based on the key you choose. GitHub Repository: https://github.com/yottanami/chord_nebula Live Demo: https://chords.yottanami.com Requirements: To use Chord Nebula, you'll need a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer. Current Status: Chord Nebula is still a simple project. I'm…

    2024 · chords.yottanami.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Chord recognition and beat tracking with llm

    2025 · chordmini.me · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    I designed a relative piano-roll-based music notation. I used 12 colored arranged in a specific way to make visible the main effects and oppositions of Western tonal harmony. The tonic is always white, so a manual annotation/interpretation is required for each MIDI file. All chords are flags of three to four colors. Minor mode is darker, major mode is lighter. Colors are arranged in thirds. I sorted the pieces from simple complex harmony. I also wrote a bit of text to explain what you may see. There's also a corpus of structures: hyperlinks of tags that allow you to find similar…

    Nov 2025 · rawl.rocks · its alternatives →

  17. 17AP

    A place to explore piano chords freely and interactively

    2022 · pianochord.io · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Hey everyone, I wanted to share something I’ve been working on that I think could be really helpful for fellow guitarists. It’s called StringScales (https://stringscales.com), and it’s a free tool that I built because, honestly, I've been able to learn so much about music on the internet, and I wanted to contribute something useful. It started as a personal project. I’ve always felt that a lot of the tools available for guitarists could be better... more intuitive, more accessible, and without the constant need to pay for basic features like CAGED or 3NPS position highlighting. So,…

    2024 · stringscales.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Harmopark is a browser-based music tool that can be used for different purposes, ranging from visually grasping harmony concepts to playing around with chord progressions.

    2019 · harmopark.app · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Intuitive touch-based Mobile DAW with Integrated Music theory. Audio effects & Toolkit. Ear training. Songwriting. Start creating music now.

    Nov 2025 · melodic-mind.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21
    ChordIQ▲103

    Learn notes, chords, sight reading, perfect pitch and more.

    2020 · songtive.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Hi folks, About seven months ago, via HN, I got nerdsniped into a silly guitar transcription problem and made a bunch of really senseless code but what came out of it was what I thought at the time could potentially be pretty useful - a guitar fretboard mapper and fingering scoring algorithm. So as of yesterday morning I've finally put those bits of code to "good" use, creating gtrsnipe to convert between MIDI files (.mid) and ASCII tab (as well as VexTab and ABC notation) and any combination/direction among the set of formats. gtrsnipe tries to intelligently find the best neck and…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23
    Pianolyze▲149

    Hey HN, I'm a pianist who's always been obsessed with understanding how great players think through harmony. What voicings are they using? How do they voice lead through changes? What's actually happening under their hands? Back in 2022, I built Harmonic Analyzer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgSgvUmiOs) – a Mac app that used ML to transcribe polyphonic piano recordings. It got some traction, but I never quite finished it. Requiring users to download a Mac app felt like unnecessary friction, and I didn’t want to limit distribution to Mac users. I just shipped Pianolyze…

    Nov 2025 · pianolyze.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Browser music and piano studio with visual harmony tools

    May 2026 · coffeepiano.com · its alternatives →

Also compare

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →