About Hear the Chord
Hear the Chord is a free reference for people learning guitar, piano or ukulele. Every chord, scale and progression is drawn and played by the same engine, so what you see is exactly what you hear.
Who runs it
The site is published by Stellar Capital LLC, a small independent publisher based in Stamford, Connecticut. Pages are written and maintained under the pen name Morgan Hale. We're not a music school and we don't claim teaching credentials; the site is a reference you can check, not a course.
How the pages are made
No chord on this site was typed in by hand. The 180 chords, 144 scales and modes, 24 keys and 14 progressions are computed from their interval formulas by a small music-theory library. The same code then does three things with each one:
- Spells it. Notes are spelled the way a key signature would spell them (F♯ in D major, not G♭), with the other spelling shown alongside.
- Draws it. Guitar and ukulele shapes are found by searching the fretboard for fingerings one hand can hold: four fingers at most, a stretch of four frets at most, a real barre only where a barre is possible, and on guitar the root as the lowest note. Well-known open and barre shapes are preferred where they exist, so C is x-3-2-0-1-0 and not something exotic.
- Plays it. The sound is synthesized from the notes on the diagram: a plucked-string model for guitar and ukulele and an additive model for piano. Nothing is a recording, which is how every voicing in every key can be played.
How it's checked
Before the site is published, an automated test suite runs over every page's data. It checks that each chord's notes and intervals match its formula; that every guitar and ukulele shape contains only chord tones, includes every required tone and can be fingered; that every scale has the right pattern of whole and half steps; that key signatures are right; and that the synthesized pitch of every note is within a few cents of the note the diagram shows. If any check fails, the site doesn't build. After each release, the live pages are checked in a real browser: on chord, scale, key, progression and tool pages, the notes the player schedules are compared with the notes the diagram lights up.
What we don't do
We don't publish song lyrics, tabs or transcriptions of songs; progressions are described in general terms. We don't write reviews of products we haven't tested, and app comparisons are based on each company's published information, with dates. We don't require an account, and the microphone used by the tuners is processed in your browser and never uploaded.
How the site pays for itself
Some pages link to lesson apps and shops. If one of those programs approves the site, we may earn a commission when you sign up or buy; it never changes what we recommend or the order things appear in. Display ads may appear below the players in future, never inside them. Details are on the affiliate disclosure page.
Corrections
If a chord, fingering or note looks wrong, please tell us: contact. Include the page address and what you expected; we fix confirmed errors in the engine itself, so the correction reaches every page that uses it.
Updated September 2026.