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Chords Explorer

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The Chords Explorer is a chord dictionary you can hear: pick a root, browse every chord type, cycle through inversions and play named progressions in nine styles, voiced the way a pianist would. Everything you pick lights up on the keyboard.

IMAGE · practice-chords-explorer.png · 1600 × 1000 px · The Chords Explorer window above the keyboard: root row, Common / Power / Extended tiers, chord tiles with one selected, the progression list with Voicing and Style, the display row with the chord name in amber, and the six-control footer.

Open the explorer

Click CHORDS on the left of the chord bar above the keyboard. Playback pauses and the explorer opens as a floating window. You can also right-click a chord name while paused and choose Open in Chord Explorer (see Live chord display). Drag it by its title to move it. Esc closes it.

Find and hear a chord

  • Pick a Root note from the top row.
  • Choose a tier: Common for everyday chords, Extended for richer jazz and colour chords, or Power for root-and-fifth power chords.
  • Click a chord tile. It plays and lights up on the keyboard, the selected tile turns light amber, and the chord’s name appears in the explorer and the chord bar.

Control

What it does

 Hand filter

Shows All chords, only those playable with One hand, or those that need Two hands

Notes filter

Shows only chords with a given number of notes

Search

Type a character or two to find chords by name (m7, sus4), by the notes they contain, or both

With Voicing set to Smooth, a tile clicked while another chord is lit plays the version closest to it. C, then Cmaj7, then C7 stay under one hand instead of each starting from the root.

In the Power tier the filters, search and progressions are switched off, because power chords are always two notes.

What you’re hearing

The row under the progressions shows what’s sounding:

Part

What it shows

Left

Sequence › and the numerals of the picked progression

Centre

The chord you’re hearing, large and amber, with its inversion, for example Cmaj7/E 1st inv. With nothing lit, the selected root.

Right

The lit notes, low to high, and ‹ Notes

Six controls sit along the bottom of the window:

Control

What it does

Show as

Spells the black keys with sharps or flats

Octave

˄ and ˅ move everything the explorer plays up or down by a whole octave, from C2 to C5 roots, including the lit chord. ↺ goes back. Shared with the Scales Explorer.

Inversion

◁ and ▷ step the chord through its inversions, shown as slash chords such as C/E. ↺ undoes the inversions and puts the chord back to the shape you played.

Accent Root

Shows the chord’s root in pink on the keyboard, in every octave. The same setting as in the Scales Explorer.

Clear ↺

Stops a playing progression and turns the lit chord off, power chords included

Scales Explorer 

Switches to the Scales Explorer

Play a progression

  • Select a chord to set the key, then pick a progression from the Progressions list, for example Pop (I–V–vi–IV), Jazz Standard (ii–V–I), Rock · Blues, Andalusian or Pachelbel. Versions that start on another chord are indented under each one.
  • Click PLAY, which appears once a progression is picked. The chords play in turn, each lit on the keyboard and named in the display row. To stop, click the button again or Clear.
  • Use the three speed arrows to play slowly, medium or fast.

Progressions play exactly as their numerals say: I–♭VII–IV in C plays C–B♭–F. The Scales Explorer uses the same list. All 20 progressions, 61 with their variants, are in Progressions, voicings and styles.

Option

Choices

Voicing

Roots: every chord in root position, each one higher than the last. Climbing: the first chord low, then inversions stepping upward, starting again low after about two octaves. Smooth: the nearest voicing each step, so the fewest notes move and everything stays under one hand.

Style

The chord colour on each step: Classic plain triads, or Coltrane, Cinematic, Roadhouse, Gospel, Ipanema, Carnival, Flamenco and Velvet. Hover a style for a description, or see all nine.

A few styles to try first:

  • Gospel, church harmony. Pop in C: C6/9 – G13 – Am11 – Fmaj9.
  • Flamenco, Phrygian fire. Andalusian in A minor: Am – G – Fmaj7♯11 – E7♭9.
  • Ipanema, bossa nova. A V that resolves down a fifth becomes the dominant a tritone away, the classic tritone substitution. Jazz Standard in C: Dm11 – D♭7♯11 – Cmaj9.

Where a style has no chord of its own for a step, that step plays the plain chord the numeral names. Every chord is lightly rolled from the bottom up with a little variation in touch, so a progression sounds played rather than triggered.

To explore chords within a key, click Scales Explorer  to switch to the Scales Explorer.

 Use case: drill ii–V–I in every key

Pick the Jazz Standard progression with Smooth voicing and play along with it. Then change the root a fifth at a time, following the Circle of Fifths, until you’ve played it in all twelve keys.

One more thing. The Orfeo logo in the explorer’s title bar is not only there to look pretty. Linger a while.

See also: Progressions, voicings and styles · Scales Explorer · Drill ii–V–I in every key