fig 1 - Chord Set Window
Introduction to Chord Coach 3 Beta 18th February 2003
Note for beta testers - please fill out the feedback questionnaire at http://www.chordcoach.com/forms/beta.htm
1 What does it do?
Chord Coach is
a tool for:
• looking up chords
• visualizing voicings (variations in where on the neck they are played)
• hearing how a particular chord sounds
• organizing chords into useful Chord Sets
• printing out Chord Sets
fig 1 - Chord Set Window
Whilst the look up of particular chords is useful in its own right, the concept of Chord Sets adds another dimension. Chord Sets are a group of chords that have some useful function as a unit (see fig 1). They may be the chords from a famous song (or one of your own), chords used in particular playing styles or simply chords that sound good together. You can build, save and print out your own Chord Sets storing your own compositions, favourite songs or even, if you are a teacher, have sets for use by your students. Alternatively, Charanga will be publishing new Chord Sets continually on ChordCoach.com.
Disclaimer Note: For Chord Sets related to published songs only the chords that the song contains are provided e.g. Day Tripper by The Beatles contains C, F, D7, E7,A and G chords. The chords are listed but not scored as such - as that violates copyright laws.
2 How do you use it?
The Chord Coach screen is divided into two. The topmost section is the Chord Lookup Facility and the bottom section is the Chord Set Organizer.
2.1 Chord Lookup Facility
fig 2 - Chord Selector
You can click either on the full chord name, or on the components of a chord name i.e. the root, extension or bass. Voicings for that particular chord will appear in the voicing window (fig 3) and you can click on them to hear what they sound like. An alternative to clicking is to use your arrow cursor keys, or to even type the name of the chord/root/extension or bass directly.
fig 3 - Voicing Window
2.2 Chord Set Organizer
At any time you can transfer a particular voicing of a chord from the voicing window into the Chord Set Window (fig 1) either by dragging/dropping with the mouse or using Add Chord from the Sets menu. Once you have one or more chords in the chord set window you can save it to disk or print it out.
2.3 Storing and Retrieving Chord sets
fig 4 - Chord Set Details
When you save a chord set, Chord Coach automatically generates a filename for you and stores the file on your hard disk in the chordsets subdirectory within the Chord Coach directory. N.B. The location of the Chord Coach directory will by default be in c:\program files\charanga\chordcoach unless you specified a different location during installation. The filename is automatically generated based on the information you give for Set Title and Artist in the Chord Set Details (fig 4). When you click on the open icon in the chordset window you will see a Browse window which will show all the chord sets currently stored on your hard disk (fig 5). You can sort these sets by “Set Title”, ”Artist”, “Submitted by” and “Year”. Double Clicking on a Set Title (or a single click on the Set Title followed by clicking Open Set) will load that set into the Chord set Window.
fig 5 - The Browse Window
2.4 Downloading Chord Sets from ChordCoach.com
Clicking on the Download icon in the chord set Window will take you to a web page from where you can access Chord Sets published by Charanga. Find the set you want and right click on the filename and select save as. Save the zip file onto your computer then open it using WinZip and Extract the set. Ensure you save the set into the chordsets sub directory as in 2.3 above.
2.5 Chord Sets with Web Links/Local Links
fig 6 - Web Links
fig 7 - Local Links
Some Chord Sets may contain links to other websites (fig 6) which contain useful information or related products or services such as commercial sheet music publishers. These Web Links appear underneath the Chord Set details. Likewise a Chord Set can also incorporate Local Links (fig 7) which may point to any file of your choosing.
2.6 Link Manager
fig 8 - Editing a Web Link
You can add your own Web Links to Chord Sets (fig 8). For example, you may have a Rolling Stones Chord Set, and want to add links to related websites such as the official Rolling Stones website. Likewise, using the Local Link feature, you can add links to any file you wish that resides on your hard disk. This can be an MP3 or WAV file, a picture - anything you wish. To add/edit/delete Web or Local Links, click the Link Manager button (fig 9) to the lower left of the Chord Coach window.
fig 9 - Link Manager Button
3. Chord Naming Conventions
Symbol Full Name
m minor
7 seventh
m7 minor 7th
maj7 Major 7th
sus4 suspended 4th
7sus4 seventh suspended 4th
º diminished
+ augmented
7+5 augmented 7th
7-5 dominant 7th with flat(ted) 5th
6 6th
m6 minor 6th
5 fifth
9 ninth
m9 minor 9th
maj9 Major 9th
9+5 augmented 9th
9-5 dominant 9th with flat(ted) 5th
11 eleventh
aug11 augmented 11th
13 thirteenth
add9 added 9th
add4 added 4th
madd9 minor added 9th
m7add9 minor 7th added 9th
madd4 minor added 4th
m7add4 minor 7th added 4th
sus2 suspended 2nd
m(maj7) minor, major 7th
m11 minor 11th
69 sixth ninth
7-9 dominant 7th with flat(ted) 9th
4. Technical Support
Visit http://www.chordcoach.com/support/