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Scales Explorer

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The Scales Explorer puts an interactive Circle of Fifths at the centre of music theory practice: pick a key and one of twelve scales, hear the chords that belong to it, and play any progression in that key. Every setting sits in one column on the right.

IMAGE · practice-scales-explorer.png · 1600 × 1000 px · The Scales Explorer: the large Circle of Fifths with its hand-lettered title and one key selected, the scale name and notes at the top left, the row of chord tiles under the circle, and the settings column on the right with a progression picked and pinned to the top of the list.

Open the explorer

Click SCALES on the right of the chord bar above the keyboard. Playback pauses and the explorer opens as a floating window, centred just above the keyboard. Drag it by its title to move it. Esc closes it.

The layout

The Circle of Fifths fills the middle of the window, with the scale’s name and notes at the top left and Chords in the Scale under the circle. Every setting sits in the column on the right, each with a one-line description:

Setting

What it does

Progressions

The full list of progressions, always open. Pick one, then click PLAY under the list. The picked progression stays pinned to the top while you scroll, and ↺ clears the pick.

Inversions

◁ and ▷ step the lit chord through its inversions and PLAY plays it again. ↺ puts it back to the shape it had when you played it.

Chord voicing

Roots, Climbing or Smooth. Shapes the tiles, the Chords in the Scale run and the progressions.

Playback speed

Slow, medium or fast, for progressions and the Chords in the Scale run. A change takes effect on the next chord.

Octave

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

Accidentals

Spells the black keys with sharps or flats.

Accent root note

Shows each chord’s root in pink on the keyboard, in every octave. On by default.

Starmap

Swaps the circle for the Starmap, with Maj | Min beside it. Appears once Starmap is on in Settings → Practice.

Reset explorer

Starts over: clears the key, the scale and the progression.

Chords Explorer 

Switches to the Chords Explorer.

Pick a key and scale

  • Click a major key on the outer ring of the circle, or its relative minor on the inner ring. The scale plays up to the octave and lights on the keyboard, and its name and notes appear at the top left.
  • Choose one of twelve scales: Major, Natural Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Major Blues, Minor Blues, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian or Mixolydian. The circle highlight moves to match.

The sharps or flats of each key are printed around the ring, so the circle doubles as a key-signature chart.

Blues scales

Stacking every other note of a blues scale gives odd chords, so the tiles of Major Blues and Minor Blues are the chords you play the scale over instead:

Scale

Tiles in C

Major Blues

C7, C6, A7, C7♯9

Minor Blues

Cm7, C7, F7, G7

Chords in the scale

  • The row of tiles shows the chords built on each step of the scale, with their Roman numerals. Each tile shows every note on its own line above the chord’s name, with the bass note after a slash when the chord is inverted (Dm/F).
  • Click a tile to hear it and see it on the keyboard. The selected tile turns light amber, and the chord keeps ringing for about two and a half seconds, as if you held the sustain pedal.
  • Click Chords in the Scale, under the circle, to hear all of them in order. Click it again to stop. Playback speed sets its pace.
  • Chord voicing shapes the tiles and the run as soon as you pick it, and the selected tile moves to its new place on the keyboard.
  • Every key starts in the same place, with the home chord’s root between C3 and B3, and the row is laid out as one run upwards from it.
  • Tiles are named by the notes they really contain. In C Major Pentatonic, C–E–A is Am/C.
  • With Accent root note on, the chord’s own root is lit in pink, whatever the voicing or inversion.

Progressions in a key

The Progressions list is the same as in the Chords Explorer: 20 progressions, or 61 counting the versions that start on another chord, which are indented under each one. All of them are listed in Progressions, voicings and styles.

  • Pick a key on the circle, then a progression from the list. PLAY stays greyed out until you pick one.
  • Click PLAY. Each chord lights on the keyboard, and steps that match a tile light that tile too.
  • Pick another progression while one is playing to switch straight to it.

Progressions play exactly as their numerals say, in the key you picked, even when that steps outside the selected scale: I–♭VII–IV in C plays C–B♭–F, although B♭ isn’t in C major. Hear I–V–vi–IV in G major, then in E♭ major, with one click on the circle each.

Inversions, octave and reset

  • Inversions: ◁ and ▷ flip the lit chord through its inversions. ↺ returns it to the shape it had when you played it, however many times you flipped it, even after moving it with Octave.
  • Octave moves the tiles, the run, the progressions and the chord already lit on the keyboard. The Chords Explorer uses the same setting.
  • Reset explorer clears the key, the scale and the progression, so you start from an empty circle.

Starmap

Switch on Starmap in Settings → Practice and a Starmap switch appears in the right-hand column. It swaps the circle for a ring of the 12 notes, where every chord you play is drawn as a glowing star that glides from chord to chord. See Starmap.

 Tip

Learning to improvise? Pick the song’s key on the circle, choose Major Pentatonic or Minor Pentatonic, and keep the scale lit on the keyboard while you try out phrases over the track.

 Use case: jam over a blues

Pick Minor Blues in A and click the four tiles in turn: Am7, A7, D7 and E7 are the chords of a blues in A. Comp them with your left hand and try the scale’s notes over them with your right.

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