The Tools

Not all practice happens over a backing track. The Tools section of the menu holds the utilities for the rest of it — all free, all running in your browser, nothing to install, no account needed.

Here is every one of them. Don't work through them in order; skim, find the two or three you'll actually use, and favorite those.

Start where every session should start. The tuner listens through your microphone and shows the nearest note and how many cents sharp or flat you are. An out-of-tune guitar over an in-tune backing track is the most common reason a practice session feels wrong without your knowing why.

Tuner

Your browser will ask permission for the microphone. That audio never leaves your device.

The metronome is a plain click with adjustable tempo and time signature, plus tap tempo — tap along to a song and it works out the speed.

Metronome

Set it slower than feels comfortable and play something you already know. If it falls apart, you've found your real tempo.

A click is honest but joyless. The drum loop is a step-sequencer drum machine with genre presets — rock, funk, blues shuffle, metal, hip-hop — so you can practise against a groove while still controlling the tempo exactly. Every preset can be edited step by step into your own pattern.

Drum Loop

Pick a preset, drop the tempo, and play a chord progression over it.

The next three drill specific musical forms.

The 12-bar blues metronome counts out the twelve-bar, three-chord form behind blues, early rock and roll and much of country. It calls each chord change as it arrives and shows the chart for it, in any key. You cannot get lost, which is exactly why it works.

12-Bar Blues Metronome

Set it to A, start slow, and play round until you no longer need to look.

The jazz blues metronome walks those same twelve bars through the reharmonisation jazz musicians use — added ii-V motion, a passing diminished chord, and a secondary dominant. The natural next step once the plain form is comfortable.

Jazz Blues Metronome

Play it back to back with the blues metronome in the same key and listen for what changed.

The ii-V-I loop drills jazz's most common cadence continuously, in any key. In C that's D minor 7, G7, C major 7 — a tension and its resolution, and a pattern that turns up constantly across the standard repertoire.

ii-V-I Practice Loop

Start in C. When it feels automatic, move up a fourth and work round the keys that way.

Two tools help with the theory side.

The circle of fifths is an interactive wheel of all twelve keys. Tap one to see its relative minor and key signature. Two things it makes obvious: every major key shares its notes with a relative minor, so a scale you practised over an A minor track works over a C major one too; and neighbouring keys differ by a single note, so they're the natural places to go when you want somewhere new but not alien.

Circle of Fifths

Tap a key to see its relative minor and signature.

The capo transposer handles the arithmetic a capo creates. Tell it your shapes and the fret and it names the sounding key, or tell it the key you need and it finds a fret and a set of shapes to get you there. Genuinely useful here, since plenty of blues tracks sit in E flat — capo at the first fret and play in D, or at the third and play in C, and the track falls under your fingers.

Capo Transposer

Try it with a key you find awkward and see which familiar shapes it unlocks.

The last three build the underlying skills.

The fretboard trainer highlights a random position on the neck and asks you to name the note. Knowing the fretboard cold — not counting up from the open string, but knowing — is what lets you find any chord or scale anywhere without a diagram.

Fretboard Note Trainer

Two minutes a day beats an hour once a month. Accuracy first, speed later.

The ear trainer plays an interval and asks you to name it, with instant feedback and a running score. This is the skill behind working songs out by ear, and the one most self-taught players skip.

Ear Trainer

If twelve options feels overwhelming, learn to spot just the octave, the fifth and the major third first.

The digital keyboard is playable with your mouse, your computer keyboard, or a MIDI controller if you have one connected, with switchable sounds. Guitarists often find that seeing a chord laid out in a straight line clears up voicings the fretboard makes confusing.

Digital Keyboard

Play a chord here and on the guitar back to back — same notes, very different picture.

That's the full set as it stands today, and new tools are added regularly — so it's worth glancing at the Tools page now and then to see what's appeared since your last visit.

You won't need all of them. The point is knowing what's there, so that when something in your playing isn't working, you know what to reach for.