ChordColor is a free, interactive music theory tool that helps musicians see the harmonic structure of chords at a glance. Every musical interval is mapped to a unique color in a rainbow spectrum — from red for the root through orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple for higher intervals — creating an intuitive visual language for harmony.
The app supports 528 unique chords across 44 qualities and 12 root notes, visualized on 25 different instruments with over 29 million computed finger positions. Musicians can explore chords by selecting them from a picker, tapping frets, keys, or pads to build custom voicings, or connecting a MIDI instrument and watching the visualization respond in real time.
ChordColor supports 26 instruments across 8 categories:
String instruments: Guitar (8 tunings), 7-String Guitar (Standard, Drop A), 8-String Guitar (Standard, Drop E), Bass in 4/5/6-string configurations, Ukulele (4 tunings), Banjo (Open G with authentic short 5th string), Mandolin (GDAE fifths), and Lap Steel (5 open tunings).
Keys: Piano with 3-octave keyboard, inversions, and standard right-hand fingerings. Organ with sustained tone and warm reverb.
Kalimba: 17-key, 10-key, and 21-key thumb pianos in standard C major with authentic alternating left-right layout.
Accordion: Stradella bass system with 120 buttons arranged by circle of fifths — bass, counter-bass, major, minor, 7th, and diminished rows.
Harp & Autoharp: Celtic lever harp (34 diatonic strings with lever toggles for accidentals) and Autoharp (36 chromatic strings with chord bar muting). Both use red C strings and blue F strings, matching real instrument conventions.
Grid controllers: LinnStrument 200, LinnStrument 128, Ableton Push, Launchpad Pro, Akai Force, and Synthstrom Deluge. All grid instruments support Perfect 4ths and Major 3rds isomorphic tunings with WebMIDI input for live performance visualization.
Cat: The internet's first chromatic cat piano. Tap cats to play pitched meows with color-coded intervals. Because music theory should be fun.
ChordColor is built for musicians at every level — from beginners learning their first chords to advanced players exploring extended harmony on 8-string guitars or isomorphic controllers. The color system makes interval relationships immediately visible, turning abstract music theory into something you can see and feel. Whether you're practicing guitar at home, exploring chord voicings on piano, plucking a kalimba, jamming on a LinnStrument, or teaching a student how chord tones relate to each other, ChordColor gives you a visual map of the music.
ChordColor is a web application built with React and Next.js, hosted on Vercel. It features premium HD audio powered by real instrument samples with Karplus-Strong synthesis as a fallback, WebMIDI support for hardware controllers, and over 29 million computed finger positions across all instruments and tunings.
Piano samples: Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC-BY-3.0). Guitar, bass, harp, xylophone, harmonium, and organ samples from tonejs-instruments by Nicholas Brosowsky (CC-BY-3.0). Audio engine powered by Tone.js.