How to use the visualizer
Everything on this page happens at the visualizer: pick notes, see them across the whole neck, identify the chords and scales they form, overlay fingering shapes, and export the result as an image. This guide walks through each tool.
The visualizer at a glance
The screen has three areas. The sidebar on the left holds your input tools (note palette, display options, chord finder) and the theory panel. The main area shows the fretboard twice: once across the full neck and again as six positional slices. The top bar has search, the shapes menu, and image export. On a phone the sidebar stacks above the fretboard instead.
The note palette
The palette holds the 12 chromatic notes. Click any of them to light that note up everywhere it occurs on the fretboard; click again to remove it. Each note keeps one color everywhere (palette, fretboard, and export) so you can follow a note across positions at a glance. Clear all resets the board.
Full neck view & positional slices
The full neck view shows every selected note from the open strings up to the 12th fret (you can extend this to 24 in display options). Standard tuning, low E at the bottom, just like looking down at your own guitar. Inlay markers at frets 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12 help you keep your bearings.
Below it, positional slices repeat the same notes in 4-fret windows, each the width of one playing position. Five fixed windows step up the neck (frets 0–4, 2–6, 4–8, 6–10, 8–12), and a sixth, movable window has a slider so you can aim it anywhere. Use the slices when you want to practice a chord or scale in one position instead of scanning the whole neck.
Display options
Expand Display Options in the sidebar to control how notes are drawn:
- Note labels on dots: show or hide the note names inside the colored dots.
- Sharp / flat: spell the five accidentals as sharps (C♯, F♯…) or flats (D♭, G♭…).
- Solfégio: switch every label to fixed-do solfège (do, re, mi…) instead of letter names.
- Full neck frets: how many frets the full neck view spans, from 12 up to 24.
The chord finder
Know the chord name but not the notes? Type a chord symbol such as Cmaj7, F#m7b5, Bb7, or even a slash chord like Dm/F, and press Find. The finder names the chord, lists its notes, and puts them straight onto the fretboard. If you’d rather not type symbols, build the chord from the Root / Quality / Extension dropdowns and press Show chord.
Picking notes by hand afterwards clears the chord result: the finder describes a specific chord, and once you change the notes it’s your board again.
The theory panel
The theory panel answers “what am I looking at?” and updates as you select notes:
- 1 note: its name and enharmonic alias.
- 2 notes: the interval between them.
- 3+ notes: every chord those notes spell, grouped by root. Each chord links to its reference page.
- 4+ notes: scales that contain your notes, with exact matches marked by an asterisk.
With two or more notes selected you also get a root-relative interval read-out: pick any selected note as the root and see every other note measured from it, ascending and descending.
The shapes menu (chord grips and scale boxes)
Lighting up notes shows you where they live; the Shapes menu in the top bar shows you how to grab them. When your selected notes form a chord or scale the menu offers matching fingering shapes: CAGED forms, triad inversions, spread voicings, drop-2 and drop-3 voicings, and pentatonic/blues boxes. Work down the rows: category, shape family, root, then the individual shape.
The chosen shape overlays the fretboard as rings around the dots: red for the root, blue for the other chord tones. Strings the grip doesn’t use get an × at the nut, just like a chord chart.
Pentatonic and blues boxes work slightly differently: they’re multi-select. Tick several boxes at once (each gets its own color) to see how the positions tile the neck and where they overlap.
Searching chords & scales
The search box in the top bar covers the named chord and scale pages on the site (around 1,400 entries). Type a chord symbol (Cmaj7, Bb7) or a scale name (a dorian, g minor pentatonic). Each result offers two actions: click the name to open its reference page, or click visualize ↗ to load its notes onto the board you’re already looking at.
Exporting an image
The Export image button downloads the current board as a PNG, useful for lesson handouts, practice notes, or sharing a voicing. The arrow next to the button opens the options: choose which sections to include (note palette, full neck, fret slices, theory panel) and whether the layout runs horizontally or vertically. The image renders at 2× resolution with a clean white background.
Sharing your board
Everything you set up (selected notes, sharp/flat spelling, solfège, fret count, chord finder input, the movable slice) is encoded in the page URL as you work. To share a board or bookmark it for later, just copy the address from your browser; opening that link restores the exact same board. Your latest board is also remembered locally in your browser, so returning to /visualize picks up where you left off.
Still stuck?
If something doesn’t work the way this guide says, or there’s a feature you wish existed, contact us. We read everything.