Chords and scales for guitar
and other stringed instruments

Sound Thinking Chord Finder & Scenes

Sound Thinking is a virtual chord and scale encyclopedia—a free, online chord finder and scale wizard at Theoretically Correct. Use it to explore chords, scales, and arpeggios for any stringed instrument in any tuning. Sound Thinking simplifies difficult concepts by making music theory easy to visualize and understand.

Launching Sound Thinking

There are a number of ways to launch Sound Thinking. When launched directly it opens with its default settings displaying:

• a guitar fingerboard in standard tuning
• a C major chord atop a C major chord map—that's a lot of information about voicings for C major chords on guitar.
• with a single click you can explore any other chord … or switch to scales.

Launching Sound Thinking to a Scene

When you launch Sound Thinking to a "scene" it shows a predefined setup, for instance, a specific instrument, with a specific chord, scale and root. You can save any setup to a scene.

Scenes can be simple or relatively complex. A simple scene usually contains a single instrument displaying a chord map or scale map.

Example Scenes

The links on this page launch Sound Thinking and open it to a predefined scene. (Presently there are you may see instrument windows with scroll bars showing; if so just resize the window to make them disappear. This will be fixed soon.)

A simple guitar scene

Here's a simple guitar chord scene: Guitar chords in standard tuning (EADGBE). When the scene opens it shows a guitar in standard tuning displaying an E chord map. You can easy select a different root, chord type, or scale. In other words, a scene is just a starting point.

A simple mandolin scene

Here's a simple scene for viewing scales on mandolin; it initially shows an A major scale displayed horizontally: Scales on Mandolin. By picking a different root you can view a scale map for any other major scale. Or you can select other scales from the scale tab.

Complex Scenes

A complex scene usually includes multiple instrument windows. Each window contains one instrument, and each instrument possesses a number of properties:

• it has a tuning (and can be retuned)
• it a has vertical or horizontal orientation
• its chord or scale tones may be displayed as notes (letter names) or scale degrees ( 1, 2, 3 … )
• it displays chord or scale information in the form of maps, fingerings (voicings), or a mixture of these
• it may have a capo ...and/or a partial capo.

The scene also holds the window size and positioning information.

Comparison Scenes

A "comparison" scene usually presents two or three instruments situated side by side. The purpose may be to contrast the differences or similarities between tunings. It may be to show chords and scales side by side, or to illustrate the effect of a capo or partial capo.

It can easily take a few minutes to manually construct a comparison scene. Fortunately the links on this page save you effort trouble. Of course Sound Thinking provides menus for selecting an instrument and the instrument's tuning, and the chord or scale you want to view, and the steps required are relatively simple, but it's just simpler to use a predefined scene.

Saving Scenes

Once in Sound Thinking you can alter any existing scene, you can clear all existing instruments and create a scene from scratch ... and you can "save" the resulting scene. Just click the "URL button" and Sound Thinking puts a URL on the clipboard. You can paste the URL into an email, paste it into a browser's address field (and bookmark it for future reference) or place the URL in an online article, just like the links on this page. Saving a scene is particularly handy if you've created a complex "comparison" scene to which you'd like to return.

Coming soon

Presently there are only a small number of scene links on this page, but they're interesting, useful, they might stir your imagination, and they will definitely save you setup time.

The following list is under construction. Soon it will include links for popular guitar tunings like:

DADGBE, DADF#AD, DADGAD, DADFAD
DADGBD, DGDF#BD, EBEG#BE, EADGCF

And there will be links for all these instruments:

Balalaika, Bandola, 5-string Banjo,Tenor banjo, Plectrum Banjo, Bouzouki, Charango, Cello, Chapman Stick, Cittern, Cuatro, Cumbus, Dobro, Domra, Dulcimer, Erhu, Fiddle, Guitar, Guitara, Guitaron, Harrana, Lute, Mandocello, Mandola, Mandolin, Octave Mandolin, Oud, Pedal Steel Guitar, Pipa, Requinto, Vihuela, Viola, Violin

Try out some of the scene links, and enjoy Sound Thinking!
A single click may reveal or clarify music information or relationships that you may be new to you.