Recent Updates
← AboutWhat's new in GuitarTheory — notable additions and improvements, most recent first.
More Reliable, Smoother on Mobile
v0.19.0June 14, 2026- ›The app is now more resilient: if any part of a page ever hits an unexpected error, you’ll see a friendly “Try again” screen instead of a blank page — and the rest of the app keeps working. Your saved data is never affected.
- ›Pages that load your data (Saved Progressions, Profile, Song Lab) now show a clean loading placeholder while they fetch, instead of a brief flash of empty space.
- ›On the home page, the fretboard diagram now sits directly under the Circle of Fifths, above the Modes and Chord Progression sections — so when you switch modes, the fretboard you’re watching stays in view instead of being pushed off-screen.
- ›Song Lab’s tab editor is friendlier on phones and tablets: the note cells are larger and easier to tap, and you can now delete a note on a touchscreen (previously the delete button only appeared on hover, which doesn’t exist on touch).
- ›Behind the scenes, an automated test suite now guards the music-theory engine (scales, chords, key analysis), so future changes are less likely to introduce errors.
Knowledge Hub — Hear the Theory (Audio in Intervals & Functional Harmony)
v0.18.3June 8, 2026- ›The Intervals guide now has two play buttons in the Interval Explorer: Melodic plays the root then the interval note in ascending sequence, and Harmonic plays both notes together so you can immediately hear whether an interval feels open and stable or dissonant and tense. Every row in the Quick Reference table has a small play button for rapid audition of all 13 intervals. The audio uses the guitar voice set in your profile.
- ›The Functional Harmony guide now has play buttons throughout: each chord card in the Function Explorer, the V→I tension arrow (plays V7 then Imaj7 so you hear the tritone resolve), a "Play ii–V–I" button on the cadence section that sequences min7 → dom7 → maj7 in the selected key, and play buttons on each of the four cadence cards (Authentic, Deceptive, Half, Plagal). The Chord Substitution section lets you audition the original chord and its substitute side-by-side.
- ›Chord type accuracy in Functional Harmony: the V chord now always plays as a dominant 7th rather than a plain major triad — the tritone between the 3rd and ♭7 is the whole point of the tension, so it was important to hear it correctly. The ii–V–I sequence plays min7 → dom7 → maj7 to match the chord symbols shown in the guide.
Knowledge Hub — 7 New Interactive Theory Articles & CAGED Fixes
v0.18.2June 8, 2026- ›Seven new in-depth music theory articles have been added to the Knowledge Hub, bringing the total to nine. The new guides cover Intervals, Chord Theory, Chord Progressions, Functional Harmony, Pentatonic Scales, the CAGED System, and Blues Theory. Each guide has interactive selectors — pick a root note or key and the diagrams update live.
- ›The Knowledge Hub landing page is now organised into three labelled sections: Foundations (Circle of Fifths, Intervals, Chord Theory, Chord Progressions, Functional Harmony), Scales & Modes (Modes, Pentatonic Scales), and Guitar-Specific (CAGED System, Blues Theory). Direct links to each section work via anchor — e.g. /knowledge#scales-modes.
- ›The CAGED System guide has an interactive shape explorer: pick any root note and any of the five shapes (C, A, G, E, D) to see the chord diagram, chord tone roles (root, 3rd, 5th), scale position, and a practical tip. An overview panel shows all five shapes across the neck simultaneously. The chord diagrams now correctly reflect the actual open chord shapes each CAGED form is derived from — C-shape is x-3-2-0-1-0, G-shape is 3-2-0-0-0-3, and so on.
- ›The "How To Use" and "Knowledge" links on the home page, and the equivalent links on the Scale Visualizer, have been updated from near-invisible text to small pill-style buttons matching the style already used on the Chord Visualizer page.
Song Lab — Smarter Licks & Scale Insert Fixes
v0.18.1June 8, 2026- ›Lick ideas inserted from the Key Analysis panel now play real melodic phrases instead of flat ascending scale runs. Each of the 14 style templates (rock, blues, metal, jazz, country, funk, classical, folk, flamenco, and more) has been rewritten with a proper degree sequence — phrases ascend, descend, resolve, repeat notes for emphasis, and end with characteristic gestures for the style.
- ›Lick rhythms are now mixed. Eighth notes, quarter notes, and half notes are encoded per step so a lick has genuine rhythmic character rather than all beats the same duration. This applies to every lick idea inserted from the Lick Ideas tab in the Key Detail view.
- ›Fixed a duplicate note at string crossings when inserting a scale box pattern. When the same pitch class appeared at both the last fret of one string and the first fret of the next string (the standard guitar tuning overlap), both copies were inserted — now only one is kept, giving clean ascending passages without audible repetition.
Song Lab Polish, GT Game Leaderboard & Modes Knowledge Guide
v0.18.0June 8, 2026- ›Section markers now appear in the live VexFlow notation as well as the tab grid. Section labels (Intro, Verse, Chorus, etc.) are drawn above the treble stave in teal; repeat markers appear in orange. Repeat barlines (the dotted double-line notation) are rendered in the stave exactly where you placed them.
- ›A fourth example song has been added — Bach's Bouree in E Minor (BWV 996, from the Lute Suite No. 1). It's a full two-voice arrangement with melody on the high strings and a walking bass, divided into A and B sections with repeat markers. Load it from the Examples dropdown in Song Lab.
- ›Community licks now have a heart (♥) button on each card. Click to favorite a lick — the count updates immediately and the heart turns red. Click again to un-favorite. Use "Sort: ♥ Popular" to find the most-favorited licks across the community. Your own public licks show a read-only heart count in the My Licks tab.
- ›A preview toggle has been added to every lick card in both the My Licks and Community tabs. Click "Preview" to see an ASCII-style tab grid directly on the card — string rows × beat columns, with bend and vibrato annotations. Click "Hide" to collapse it.
- ›The built-in metronome is now available in the Song Lab toolbar (between Examples and Save). Click to start a Web Audio API click track at the current song BPM. Beat LEDs pulse with each click — the downbeat uses a higher-pitched accent and a slightly larger dot. Runs independently of tab playback so you can practice along. BPM changes while running are picked up automatically.
- ›GT Game now supports sharing and leaderboards. A "Challenge a Friend" button appears on the pass screen and level info screen — it copies a deep-link URL (e.g. /game?level=12) directly to your clipboard. Opening that URL auto-advances to the level info screen for that level. A Leaderboard panel in the hub shows top 10 scores for any level, with medal badges for the top 3.
- ›The ASCII tab import dialog in the Tab Sheets panel can now load from a URL. Paste any raw-text URL (raw Pastebin, GitHub Gist raw, a direct .txt file) and click Load URL — the tab text is fetched client-side and immediately parsed. Error messages appear on CORS or HTTP failures with a hint about using raw URLs.
- ›A "Use in Song Lab" button (violet) has been added to the Scale Visualizer scale info panel and the Chord Visualizer info panel. In the Scale Visualizer it inserts the selected scale directly into the active tab sheet. In the Chord Visualizer it adds the selected chord to your Song Lab progression. Both navigate to Song Lab automatically.
- ›A new interactive Modes guide is available at /knowledge/modes (also linked from the Knowledge hub). It has a 7-mode tab selector, a root key picker, and shows the scale notes, step pattern, and interval formula for each mode — altered degrees are highlighted. A single-string fret diagram shows the mode's positions on the neck. "Try in Song Lab" links deep-link directly into Song Lab with the mode pre-inserted.
- ›Error boundaries have been added around the three main panels in Song Lab. If the VexFlow notation renderer, the Progression Panel, or the Tab Editor crashes, only that panel shows the error with a "Try again" button — the rest of the app keeps working.
- ›The tab editor now has a "Capo +N" button in the tab controls that appears when a capo is set. Clicking it shifts all fret numbers up by the capo amount — useful after importing tab written without capo offset, or when you want to notate the chord shapes rather than the sounding frets. The operation is undo-aware.
Song Lab — Section Markers, Example Songs & Chord Editing
v0.17.2June 7, 2026- ›You can now edit any chord directly in the tab grid. Double-click a chord symbol in the chord row to open an inline editor — change the root note and chord type, then Save or Cancel. The voicing resets to position 1 when the chord identity changes.
- ›Section and repeat markers are now available in the tab editor. A § row sits above the chord row in the grid — click any beat cell to add a marker. Choose from preset labels (Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Solo, Outro, Break) or type a custom label. Repeat markers (|: and :|) are also supported. Markers appear in the grid and in PNG/PDF exports.
- ›Three example songs are now built into Song Lab: Bach's Minuet in G (BWV Anh. 114, 16 bars, 3/4 time, G major), Spanish Romance (8-bar arpeggio intro, E minor), and a 12-Bar Blues in E (shuffle riff pattern, 4/4). Click Examples in the toolbar to load any of them as a working copy — nothing is saved until you explicitly hit Save.
- ›The Chord Progression Builder on the home page now has a Tap Tempo button next to the BPM field — the same feature that was already in Song Lab. Tap it repeatedly to set the BPM by feel rather than typing a number.
Song Lab — In-place Editing, Undo/Redo, Tap Tempo & More
v0.17.1June 7, 2026- ›Chord cards in the Song Lab progression panel can now be edited in place. Click the pencil icon on any chord to change its root note and type without removing and re-adding the chord. The voicing resets to position 1 when the chord identity changes.
- ›The tab editor now has a full undo/redo history stack. Every note entry, bend, vibrato, move, insert, duplicate, or clear operation is tracked. Click Undo / Redo in the toolbar or use Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y (Cmd+Z / Cmd+Y on Mac) to step through up to 50 history states.
- ›A Tap button now appears next to the BPM field in the Chord Progression panel. Tap it repeatedly to the beat of any song — the app averages the last 8 intervals and sets the BPM automatically. The buffer resets after 3 seconds of inactivity.
- ›Key analysis now activates as soon as you have 2 or more chords in your progression. The previous requirement of 3 chords was unnecessarily strict — many two-chord songs (I–V, i–VII, etc.) have a clear key.
- ›The lick library search bar now filters by lick name, key tag, and style in real time. A clear button appears when text is entered. The search works across both My Licks and Community tabs.
Song Lab — Chord Voicings, Templates & Playback Improvements
v0.17.0June 7, 2026- ›Every chord card in the Song Lab progression panel now shows a live voicing diagram. Use the ‹ › arrows to cycle through all available voicings for that chord — open position, barre shapes, CAGED positions, and more. The diagram updates in real time as you cycle, so you can see exactly what shape you're selecting.
- ›Chord progression playback now uses the selected voicing for each chord, with correct fretboard register and octave. Previously all chords played as bare triads at a fixed octave regardless of which voicing was selected.
- ›The full set of 14 chord types is now available in Song Lab's chord picker — dim7, m7♭5, maj6, and 7sus4 were previously missing. Song Lab now matches the home page Chord Progression Builder for chord type coverage.
- ›A new Load template button gives instant access to all 28 curated progression templates (Pop, Rock, Metal, Blues, Jazz, Country, and more). Pick a root key from the dropdown, choose a genre, and click any template to load it transposed to your key.
- ›MIDI export now correctly transposes all notes by the capo setting. If your song has capo on fret 2, the exported MIDI will sound at the correct sounding pitch rather than the open-string pitch. Bend annotations are also reflected in exported MIDI note pitch.
- ›A linked song can now be unlinked from its saved progression directly inside Song Lab. Click the × next to the "Linked" badge in the song name row — the song keeps all its chords and the saved progression is untouched.
Guitar Theory Knowledge Hub & Circle of Fifths Fix
v0.16.6June 6, 2026- ›A new Knowledge section is now available at /knowledge (also in the hamburger menu). It's a central hub for in-depth music theory guides written specifically for guitarists. The first guide covers the Circle of Fifths in detail — what it is, how to read it, key signatures, the perfect fifth, and practical guitar applications. More guides are on the way.
- ›The interactive Circle of Fifths on the knowledge page no longer jumps or shifts when you click between keys. Previously, switching from C Major (which has no sharps or flats) to any other key caused the detail panel to resize and push the circle down. The layout is now stable — the key-detail card maintains consistent height regardless of which key is selected.
- ›Clicking a key on the knowledge circle no longer deselects it on second click. The circle always keeps a key highlighted, so there's no jarring transition to an empty state.
Chord Visualizer — Complete Barre Chord Library
v0.16.5June 6, 2026- ›Every chord type now has movable barre chord voicings for every key. E-Shape and A-Shape barre positions are available for all 12 keys (F through B, plus enharmonic equivalents like Ab and Bb) across all 12 chord types — major, minor, maj7, min7, dom7, dom7sus4, aug, add9, maj6, min7b5, sus4, and power.
- ›Previously, barre shapes were sparse or missing for many key/type combinations. You can now cycle through barre positions on any chord without hitting dead ends.
- ›All new voicings use physically correct finger assignments and proper barre notation — no impossible fingerings.
API Docs — Fixed in Production & Full Dark Theme
v0.16.4April 22, 2026- ›The API documentation page (/docs) was broken in production — Swagger UI failed to load the spec and showed "Failed to load API definition". The root cause was that Vercel's serverless bundler was not including the OpenAPI YAML file. This is now fixed, and the interactive docs work correctly on the live site.
- ›The "Try it out" feature in the docs was sending requests to a non-existent subdomain. All interactive API requests now go to the correct endpoint.
- ›Swagger UI has been restyled with a comprehensive dark theme that matches the rest of the app. The previous dark overrides were incomplete, leaving inputs, code blocks, response panels, and schema sections with bright white backgrounds.
- ›JavaScript code examples on the How To Use page were updated to match the actual API response shapes — the old examples referenced renamed fields that no longer exist.
Song Lab — Custom Lick Library & Beat Duplication
v0.16.3April 21, 2026- ›You can now save any section of your tab as a named custom lick. Hit the new Select button in the Tab Sheet controls, check the beats you want (or click "all" to grab everything), and click Save as Lick. Give it a name, optionally tag it with a key and style, and choose whether to share it with the community.
- ›Saved licks appear in a new My Licks tab inside the Key Detail view, alongside the existing Scale Suggestions and Lick Ideas tabs. Licks tagged for the current key are surfaced at the top. Hit Insert to drop the lick's beats into your tab at the cursor position.
- ›Community Licks are also browsable from the My Licks tab — a sub-tab shows public licks from all users, filtered by the active key when relevant.
- ›The same selection mode now powers beat duplication. Select any beats, then click Duplicate — the selected beats are copied and inserted immediately after the last selected beat. The selection highlight moves to the new copies so you can see exactly what landed. Use this to quickly build repeating riff or fill patterns.
Song Lab — Outside Notes, Chord Insertion & Vibrato
v0.16.2April 21, 2026- ›The Tab Key Analysis panel now explains why your lick notes might not match the progression key. When a key is selected from the chord analysis, any note outside that key is highlighted in amber. Each outside note shows its interval name (b3, b7, maj6, etc.) and a plain-English description of the musical role it plays — blue note, Mixolydian feel, Dorian brightness, Phrygian color, and so on. This makes it easy to see when an intentional outside tone is creating tension versus when the lick genuinely clashes.
- ›You can now insert chord voicings directly into the tab notation. An "Insert Chord" button appears in the Tab Sheet controls when your progression has chords. Clicking it opens a panel listing each chord — click one to insert its standard-tuning fretted voicing as a tab beat at your cursor position.
- ›Vibrato notation is now supported. When editing a note cell, a "vib" toggle button appears alongside the existing bend control. Toggling it marks the note with a purple ~ indicator in the grid and renders a VexFlow vibrato wavy-line symbol above the corresponding note in the treble staff. Lick Ideas that describe vibrato technique (Upper Octave Wail, High-Position Solo, B.B. King Upper Register, High-Register Wail) now automatically add vibrato marks to the appropriate notes when you click Insert.
Song Lab — Lick Ideas Insert at the Right Register
v0.16.1April 18, 2026- ›When you click Insert on a Lick Idea, the tab notes now land at the correct register for that lick. High-register lick ideas (upper octave solos, 12th-position phrases, tapping, shred runs) insert notes starting at the 12th fret area on the high strings. Low-register lick ideas (riffs, palm-muted patterns, open-position lines) continue to insert in the first-position area as before.
- ›High-register licks are now labelled with a "12th pos" badge in the Lick Ideas panel so you can see at a glance where on the neck they will land before you insert.
- ›This applies across all 14 supported styles. Rock, blues, jazz, metal, country, classical, flamenco, funk, folk, and pop all have their high-register lick descriptions (B.B. King upper register, SRV double-stop bends, neoclassical runs, tapping leads, pentatonic wail phrases, etc.) correctly placed in the upper octave.
Song Lab — Key Analysis, Tab Entry & Song Persistence
v0.16.0April 18, 2026- ›Song Lab is a new top-level workspace at /song-lab where you can bring a chord progression, identify the key it belongs to, explore scale and lick ideas for that key, and write guitar tablature — all in one place. Songs save to your account and can be reloaded any time.
- ›Add 3 or more chords and the key analysis engine scores your progression against all 24 major and minor keys. Each result shows how many of your chords fit diatonically, the key signature, and the full diatonic chord structure with your matching chords highlighted.
- ›Clicking a key opens a detail view with two panels. Scale Suggestions lists up to 5 scales for your style (rock, blues, jazz, metal variants, country, funk, and more) ranked by fit. Lick Ideas gives style-specific technique descriptions — picking approaches, position guidance, bending ideas, and more.
- ›The Tab Sheet Editor is a grid where you enter fret numbers string by string. As you build it, VexFlow renders live standard notation and TAB below. The notation follows guitar's transposing convention (written 8va). Supports 10 time signatures, per-beat duration control, and measure barlines.
- ›Bends are now supported in tab notation. Click the ↑ indicator on any fretted note to cycle through no bend, full step, and half step. VexFlow renders the bend arc with "Full" or "1/2" text in the TAB stave.
- ›Hit Play to hear your tab played back through your current guitar voice (acoustic steel, electric jazz, overdriven, or distortion). Playback respects your tempo and note durations, then auto-stops when the last note ends.
- ›Insert Scale adds notes from a scale suggestion (or one of your favourite scales) directly into the tab at the current cursor position. Lick Ideas in the key detail view have an Insert button that does the same from the analysis panel.
- ›Songs can optionally be linked to a Saved Progression. When linked, edits to the chord list in Song Lab sync back to your Saved Progressions automatically, and changes made in Saved Progressions are reflected when you reload the song.
Guitar Sound — Persists Correctly on Page Load
v0.15.2April 18, 2026- ›Fixed a race condition where the guitar sound preference was briefly reset to Acoustic Steel on page load before your saved preference was applied. Now the selected guitar type is saved to localStorage, so the correct sound is active from the very first note — even before your profile loads.
- ›Fixed a second issue where the guitar type was being set before NextAuth finished determining your login state. The app now waits for authentication to resolve before applying preferences, preventing a temporary flicker to default settings.
Audio Accuracy — Chords & Scales Now Play at the Right Pitch
v0.15.1April 17, 2026- ›Every chord diagram in the app now plays at the exact pitch shown on the fretboard. An open E major chord played at the nut sounds different from an E major barre at the 7th fret — both now play at their correct register instead of a generic octave approximation.
- ›This applies everywhere: the Chord Visualizer, the Chord Progression Builder (including saved voicings), and all scale pattern playback in the Scale Visualizer.
- ›Scale patterns in the TAB view also had a string-mapping bug that caused the wrong open string notes to be used for middle strings (B and G) — this is now corrected, so scale runs sound accurate from string to string.
- ›Alternate tunings benefit too — Drop D, Open G, DADGAD, and all other non-standard tunings now play chord voicings at their correct pitches.
Chord Identifier — Find Chords from Notes
v0.15.0April 16, 2026- ›The Chord Visualizer now includes an "Identify Chord from Notes" tool. Click the panel at the top of the page, select any notes you're playing (or hearing), and the tool instantly tells you what chords those notes form.
- ›Exact matches are shown in green — the notes you selected make up that chord exactly. Chords that contain your notes plus a few more are shown in blue, with the missing notes marked so you can see what it would take to complete them.
- ›Click any result to load it into the Chord Visualizer — voicing diagrams, staff notation, interval degrees, and compatible scales all update immediately.
- ›All results stay clickable after you select one, so you can compare multiple chords side-by-side without re-entering your notes.
Audio Engine — Per-Type Effect Tuning
v0.14.0April 11, 2026- ›The audio engine has been extracted into its own library (vaiism-guitar-audio) that powers all guitar sound playback. Nothing changes from a user perspective — all four guitar types still work exactly as before.
- ›Each guitar type now has its own reverb and chorus settings tuned to its character. Acoustic Steel gets a roomy 1.5-second reverb; Electric Jazz a warmer medium tail; Overdriven Guitar a shorter reverb so the grit stays tight; Distortion Guitar is dry with no chorus (chorus on distortion creates muddiness). Previously all four types shared the same effect settings.
- ›Switching guitar types now rebuilds the entire effect chain rather than just swapping the sampler, so there is no bleed-through of one type's reverb tail into another type's sound.
Guitar Sound Selection
v0.13.0April 2, 2026- ›You can now choose which guitar sound is used for all audio playback across the app. Four options are available: Acoustic Steel, Electric Jazz, Distortion, and Overdriven.
- ›The setting lives in your profile under "Guitar Sound". It saves to your account and applies on every visit — no page reload needed when switching.
- ›If you're not signed in, the app defaults to Acoustic Steel.
- ›This is the foundation for expanding the sound library over time — more guitar types can be added without any changes to the rest of the app.
Chord Visualizer — Export to PNG & PDF
v0.12.5March 31, 2026- ›The Chord Visualizer now has an Export button next to the Play button. Hit it to download a complete chord reference sheet as a PNG or PDF.
- ›Each export includes the chord name and type, a Notes section showing all chord tones as color-coded pills (root in purple, others in blue), a Degrees & Formula section with interval boxes and the chord formula, and a Staff Notation section with the notes written on a treble clef staff.
- ›All chord voicings are shown as fretboard diagrams — the same diagrams you see on the page, including open strings, muted strings, barre chords, and finger numbers.
- ›A "Works With" section at the bottom lists compatible scales for the chord.
- ›Several chord diagram data fixes were made: an impossible m7♭5 "Barre-A Shape" fingering (the same finger assigned to three different positions simultaneously) was corrected, and two other voicings with notes outside their displayed fret window were fixed.
Scale Visualizer — Export to PNG & PDF
v0.12.4March 30, 2026- ›The Scale Visualizer now has an Export button (↓ icon) next to the scale name. Hit it to download a clean reference sheet as a PNG image or PDF.
- ›Each export includes: the scale title and mood description, notes in scale, scale degrees with interval labels, the step pattern (W/H), a full fretboard diagram, and standard notation + TAB when you have a fingering pattern selected.
- ›The fretboard diagram shows every scale note across the neck — root notes in purple, scale tones in blue, open strings as unfilled circles. If you have the 24-fret view active, the diagram splits into two rows (frets 0–12 and 13–24) so notes stay large and easy to read.
- ›The diagram reflects your current tuning — string labels show the actual open string notes, inlay dots mark standard fret positions (3, 5, 7, 9, 12), and fret numbers below each row keep you oriented on the neck.
- ›Non-standard tunings are called out in the export header so reference sheets are self-explanatory.
Alternate Tuning Chord Voicings
v0.12.3March 30, 2026- ›The Chord Visualizer now has a Tuning selector alongside the root note and chord type controls. Choose from 14 tunings across five groups: standard (6 and 7-string), drop tunings (Drop D, Double Drop D, Drop C), transposed (half-step and full-step down), modal/Celtic (DADGAD, FACGCE), and open tunings (Open G, Open D, Open E, Open A).
- ›For standard 6-string tuning, the existing hand-crafted voicing library is used exactly as before — same named positions, same CAGED shapes.
- ›For any other tuning, chord voicings are computed automatically. The algorithm finds playable shapes by mapping each string's chord tones across fret windows, preferring open strings (which are especially resonant in alternate tunings) and root-in-bass voicings.
- ›String labels on each chord diagram update to show the actual open string notes for the selected tuning. Audio playback uses the correct pitches too — not standard tuning defaults.
41-Scale Library & Enharmonic Spelling
v0.12.2March 29, 2026- ›The scale library has grown to 41 scales. New additions include Phrygian Dominant (Hijaz), Persian, Raga Todi, Raga Marwa, Raga Purvi, Lydian Dominant, Super Locrian (Altered), Dorian b2, Lydian Augmented, Locrian Natural 2, Bebop Major, Romanian Minor, Neapolitan Major, Enigmatic, Augmented, and Prometheus.
- ›All 7-note scales now use degree-based enharmonic spelling — each degree is assigned the correct letter name so note names never repeat within a scale. For example, G Phrygian Dominant now correctly shows G Ab B C D Eb F# instead of G G# B C D D# F.
- ›Scales that require double accidentals (## or bb) to maintain correct spelling are highlighted in amber, with a note explaining the unusual notation.
Alternate Tuning Support
v0.12.0March 28, 2026- ›The Scale Visualizer now supports 14 tunings across five groups: standard (6, 7, 8 string), drop tunings (Drop D, Double Drop D, Drop C), transposed (half-step down, full-step down), modal/Celtic (DADGAD, FACGCE), and open tunings (Open G, Open D, Open E, Open A).
- ›Selecting a tuning updates the fretboard, fingering patterns, notation, and TAB all at once.
- ›For alternate tunings, scale patterns are automatically generated per neck position rather than relying on CAGED shapes designed for standard tuning.
- ›The Notation & TAB section now shows a context header — scale name, pattern, fret range, and tuning — so you always know what you're looking at without scrolling up.
GT Game — Music Theory Quiz
v0.11.0March 27, 2026- ›A 20-level progressive music theory quiz, organized into Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Master tiers.
- ›Questions cover scales, intervals, chords, modes, and key relationships — with timed answers and plain-English explanations for every question.
- ›Earn tier badges as you advance. Your progress and best scores are saved to your profile.
- ›A game badge can optionally appear on your avatar throughout the app.
Chord Progression Builder Enhancements
v0.10.3March 2026- ›Edit and duplicate saved progressions directly from the library — changes save back without creating a new entry.
- ›Export any progression as a PNG image or PDF, complete with chord diagrams.
- ›Bulk-delete multiple progressions at once from the library.
- ›Upload a custom profile photo from the profile page.
- ›Each chord card in the builder now has a dropdown to change its chord type mid-progression (major, minor, 7ths, suspended, and more).
- ›Added 12 new progression templates across R&B, Country, Funk, Modal, and Neo-Soul genres — 28 templates total.
Chord Library, Voicings & Polish
v0.9.0 – v0.10.2March 2026- ›Full chord diagram library with 14 chord types, multiple voicing positions, and interval/degree display modes.
- ›Mini chord diagrams in the progression builder show the exact voicing and position for each chord — saved and restored with the progression.
- ›Fret position cycling (← →) on each chord card so you can pick the voicing that fits your hand.
- ›Progression share links — make a progression public and share it with anyone, no account required.
- ›Colorblind mode added to Preferences — replaces color-only cues in the Circle of Fifths.
Scale Visualizer & Enharmonic Keys
v0.8.2 – v0.8.13February 2026- ›Scale Visualizer launched — explore 20+ scales on an interactive fretboard with fingering patterns (CAGED, 3NPS, Box), staff notation, and guitar TAB.
- ›Scale playback with accurate guitar transposing convention (written 8va above concert pitch).
- ›Save favorite scales to your profile for quick one-click access.
- ›Enharmonic key support on the Circle of Fifths — toggle between B/Cb, F#/Gb, and Db/C# spellings; all panels (scale notes, chord names, fretboard) update together.
- ›8-string guitar support added to the fretboard and Scale Visualizer.
REST API, Chord Progressions & More
v0.6.0 – v0.8.1January – February 2026- ›Public music theory REST API launched at /api/v1 — scales, chords, keys, intervals, and fretboard data. No account needed.
- ›Chord Progression Builder added to the Circle of Fifths — build progressions from diatonic chords, set BPM, and play them back.
- ›Progression template library with curated chord progressions across Pop, Rock, Metal, Blues, Jazz, and more.
- ›Drag-to-reorder chords; save progressions to your account.
- ›User accounts, profiles, and preferences (default key, guitar type, theme).
GuitarTheory is actively developed — more to come.