Once upon a time ________ [insert name here] took their guitar into the enchanted forest, built a campfire, sat down on a log, and started to play. It took a while for the guitar to warm up, but when it started making pleasing sounds little monsters began coming out of the woods to listen.

As the sound got better, more monsters came. When the guitar sounded bad, some of the little creatures would become annoyed and return to the forest. This encouraged better playing. The little monsters were such a good audience that _______ decided to return every day. Their playing kept improving, and they enjoyed every minute.

The Reality

It doesn’t get any better than this: In an age when infotech wizards compete with each other to see who can make internet activity the most pointless, the clever folks at Animoca (Outblaze Ventures) are making use of Uberchord Engineering technology to teach beginner guitar. Their new app is called Monster Chords, and it’s amazing. Here is a download link of the app.

Why Does it Have to Be Hard, Anyway?

Learning how to play an instrument by rote and repetition is most music students’ least favourite learning activity, but Monster Chords turns it into a game that keeps you coming back for more, making skill development not just painless but entertaining as well.

Although a little discipline never hurt, it’s been proven that children learn best through play, and so turning guitar lessons into play sessions is a very effective learning technique, helping even the most distractible child to focus long enough to develop enough mastery and self-confidence to persevere with guitar study.

Even better, they’re learning not how to compete with others, but rather to compete with themselves, always trying to do better than they did last time— the only good kind of competition!

Trial Run

So let’s get started. Get out your guitar and set your device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch), open to Monster Chords, in front of you.

You’ll need to get your guitar in tune or the sound recognition software won’t work. If it’s not in tune and you don’t know how to tune it, don’t worry— Monster Chords comes with its own easy-to-use guitar tuner that you can access at any time during play (and then easily return to where you left off). It works by means of a line that turns red or green (green is where you want to be) and then a ping and a star when you get the pitch right.

And if you play for a while and the guitar starts going out of tune, the app will tell you, even before you notice the change yourself.

Green is also the colour you wait for when the chord symbols float up out of the fire. When the ring around the chord symbol is green, you strum that chord, and if you get it right (i.e. you play it smoothly along with the rhythm of the backround music), an adorable little forest buddy (these come in an assortment of shapes and colours) comes out of the woods and grooves on your music. If you make a mistake, they’ll start heading back to the woods again. You don’t want that, so you focus a little more, you try a little harder, and you bring them back with your smooth guitar sound.

Keep moving happily through the thirty levels, each new level a review of what you did before, until you can play a whole song.

Entertaining Monsters— It’s Not Just For Kids

After taking Monster Chords for a spin I decided to keep using it myself even though I’m an experienced player, and I also recommended it to an adult beginner I know. Far from seeming like work, coaxing the little creatures to come and join me at the bonfire was so refreshing that I could see myself playing around with this app even while feeling mentally exhausted after a hard day’s work.

It feels like an escape, but real learning and technique improvement is taking place. It’s an idea whose time has come, and it may just be the wave of the future.

Having it All: The Monthly Subscription

The Monster Chords subscription offers new songs and exercises every month so the learner can stay interested long enough to keep practicing without being told. No special equipment is needed, just a guitar that has all its strings and can be tuned.

Here’s what you get with your monthly subscription (around $2.00 USD per month):

• Video tutorials
• Simple diagrams
• An easy-to-use guitar tuner
• Ascending levels of difficulty that eventually have you playing whole songs
• Tons of encouragement
• New activities, songs, and difficulty levels added each month

Monster Chords is now available on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch in a dozen different languages, free of charge for limited access And for the small monthly subscription price of two dollars USD you can access all the features. The first five levels in the app are free, so no excuses for not giving it a try!

Follow Monster Chords on Facebook!

The Uberchord App & Blog is also a great resource for kids who have internet access, and would like to learn guitar at their own pace. We have free content covering topics like types of effects used by popular guitarists, jingle bells and other winter songs guitar, as well as theory lessons on the key of b flat guitar. There’s guides to help you learn the most important chord shapes, and theory lessons that’ll put all the main concepts into context.

The post Monster Chords: The Best App for Kids to Learn Guitar at Home appeared first on Uberchord App.

After a lot of blood, sweat and tears, Uberchord 2.0 has finally arrived!

This is our biggest release ever and we’ve added even more exciting features for you to learn better & faster. Here is what is new for you guys:

All New Learning Paths

Beginner, Intermediate & Advanced levels

Whether you are a beginner or an intermediate or an advanced guitar player, we have your back. We have all new learning paths with new content suitable to your needs and level. Explore new songs, exercises, chords progressions, full songs courses along with strumming and rhythm trainer.

Starting from simple two finger chords to playing your first song, to learning the complex rhythm and strumming patterns, we have carefully handpicked songs and topics to kickstart your guitar career. As you progress further on this journey, the difficulty level of exercises and songs will keeps increasing, challenging you a notch higher each time.

Introducing Songs

With our new licensing partnership Universal Music we can finally offer you all the famous songs you always wanted to learn. Our learning paths already include about a dozen of the finest songs ever created, with handcrafted exercises to prepare your skills.

Everybody wants to start learning their favourite songs as soon as they can. But are you learning them correctly? The internet is great for finding out how to play millions of songs, except there’s little guarantee you’re being shown the right chords and lyrics—unless you learn them here at Uberchord.

Selected songs from the Universal Music’s catalogue will be added on regular basis in the app for you. To begin with, Coldplay’s Yellow, Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters and Bob Dylan’s House Of the Rising Sun, are available for free in the Beginner’s Course 1. You can learn to play the complete song in the perfect way along with lyrics, and rhythm trainer.

The Strumming Trainer: World Premiere

Get your your right hand to work

It’s one thing to get your chord fingering perfect, but your strumming hand is just as important to get those cool rhythms happening and play some tunes properly. A lot of guitar tutorials don’t pay enough attention to strumming, but here at Uberchord we believe great technique with both your hands is essential and focusing on just strumming is a good practice method. So we’ve developed the world’s first interactive Strumming Trainer for guitar to get those rhythm and grooves working for you.

New Premium Content Every Week

While the first Beginner’s Course is absolutely free for you to try, for just $ 4.99 per month you can subscribe to our exclusive and premium content and select songs based on artists and difficulty level.

We’ll be adding new songs and new learning content every week so that you never feel stuck or bored from learning to play guitar. Keep a look out on our online music platform, newsletter, blog, or any of our social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or GooglePlus to get the latest updates and news about us.

Uberchord is personal

Daily Workout and Statistics

To build a great chord repertoire requires a lot of repetition and practice. Uberchord’s Daily Workout feature turns a chore into a pleasure. It creates great individual chord exercises for you.

Your personal profile gives you detailed statistics on your overall learning progress, allows you to set reminders and goals, and schedule your practice.

Daily Workout: Uberchord will introduce you to new chords and patterns that you might otherwise avoid for longer than you should. Just ten minutes a day in the Daily Workout Uberchord gymnasium can make all the difference. And the heaviest thing you’ll have to pick up is your guitar.

Coming Soon: Uberchord Music

A new music platform for guitar players

Very soon you will be able to browse your favourite songs and artists from our growing catalog along with lyrics and strumming patterns on our brand new online music platform: Uberchord Music.

All of our content will be available as interactive exercises in the Uberchord app — your mobile guitar teacher is just a click away.

Our fantastic deal with Universal Music Publishing allows us to offer an ever-growing selection of popular songs with accurate chords, lyrics and rhythm trainer. More and more songs will added every week and we’re aiming to provide a huge library of songs from which you can choose.

We really hope you enjoy and use our latest additions. Let us know what you think. We’re always open to feedback and suggestions.

The post Uberchord 2 — Introducing Songs & World’s first Strumming Trainer for Guitar appeared first on Uberchord App.

1. Uberchord

First on our list is the small but scrappy Uberchord, who have been making ripples in the guitar tech app market with their all-in-one didactic guitar teaching app.
The app was borne out of steeled ambition to change the guitar learning process. CEO Eckart Burgwedel was struck by the idea for Uberchord following an icy taster-lesson with a new guitar teacher.

After being told that his technique was poor, Eckart promptly stood up, tore out a nearby door from its hinges and left without a word. He never looked back, vowing to create a product to rob all guitar teachers of their livelihoods, crushing them underneath the emotionless advance of technology. This happy founding principle of the company underpins their work to this very day. The company recently celebrated their first year anniversary being available on the iTunes App Store, since which they have been getting glowing exposure in some of the most prestigious guitar magazines worldwide.

2. Uberchord

Uberchord takes second place, having created a neat little app which serves as a guitar teacher. Like its meatier, human counterpart, the app can ‘listen’ to your guitar playing. It does this by using the inbuilt smartphone microphone to detect audio. Strum a guitar near your device and Uberchord’s guarded chord-recognition technology comes into play.

The app processes the audio and is able to give the user instant feedback on what he is playing. Matching the file against a huge library of chords, Uberchord will tell you the name of any chord you stumble upon, be it simple open chords or spidery 8-fingered jazz abominations. Throw a flower pot at the fretboard and see what chord it makes. Amazingly enough, their technology can also tell you if you’re fingering a chord wrong, and how to fix it.

3. Uberchord

Worth a mention is Uberchord, a Berlin-based startup whose app of the same name has been getting international attention. With its newest update, Uberchord has taken a step forward in providing the full guitar-learning package. Not content with just providing a suite of funky guitar learning tools, sophisticated as they may be, the company’s ‘Uberpath’ feature provides a campaign mode. Selecting their entry skill level according, users will be gently pulled up a tree of increasingly complicated chords and songs.
For those whose need for self-validation is met only by daily performance statistics, Uberchord also tracks user progress. Upon request, the app provides instant numeric data on time spent per exercises, and users are awarded XP points accordingly. Just like a real guitar teacher.

4. Uberchord

Uberchord is a company which makes a guitar app called Uberchord. Uberchord is an app made by a company also called Uberchord. Both the firm and its product share the same name. This isn’t really that confusing, or novel. Actually this happens all the time and I don’t really know where I’m going with this.
Anyways, Uberchord deserve a mention here for their little app, which has been performing well on the App Store following its long-awaited release last year. Tucked away in plain view is a powerful in-built tuner. What separates this from the infinite list of other tuners out there is the use of Uberchord’s prime audio detection software. The ultra-sensitive microphone picks up the sound in high-fidelity, allowing for a quick and precise tuning.

5. Uberchord

Sorry, we couldn’t resist putting ourselves at the end of the list. We’ve never been a company to shy away from a nice marketing opportunity, and we like to think we could go toe-to-toe with any of the excellent companies mentioned in this post.
We try not to drone on about our benefits or features. There’s no need for overkill. Our aim has been to provide a tool which addresses and appifies the concerns that we as guitarists had when learning. Creating a product to, quite literally, revolutionise the guitar-learning process isn’t a humble objective. We’re dedicated however, to slave away in continuous product development and the waking nightmare that is marketing to achieve a product which is deserving of that much desired adjective ‘indispensible’.

It hasn’t been smooth-sailing. There’s been more than a few meltdowns and that black week where our emergency office suicide-pact came closest to being executed is one we’ll long remember. Startups like ours often fail, quickly and expensively. We’re thrilled to be in our second year of business and our dogged motivation has been fortified by the extremely positive response we’ve received both by the international press and on the ground at trade fairs like NAAM.

Neelesh plays demented lead guitar in the Canadian alternative band We The Crooked. Check out their YouTube here.

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Uberchord has been selected as one of the three participants of the Abbey Road Studio, London’s very first start-up accelerator program Abbey Road Red

Ever since we found out about being selected as a participant of the program, we’ve been ecstatic. Here is the official Forbes Magazine article.

Being part of the accelerator program means that Uberchord receives unparalleled support from two of the biggest and the most iconic music brands in the world – Abbey Road Studios, London and Universal Music Group. It gives us access to one-on-one sessions with music industry experts, access to the legendary Studio No. 3 at the Abbey Road, facilities like meeting rooms, networking events, and media exposure. And that’s just to name a few. But most of all, the association with the world’s most iconic, historical and loved music brand, Abbey Road Studios is just simply amazing.

Launched in 2015, Abbey Road Red is the British music icon’s initiative to develop and support the next generation of music technologies in innovation. Backed up by parent company, Universal Music, Red runs Europe’s only music tech specific incubator program.

Our CEO Eckart Burgwedel adding another feather to his cap commented, “just being associated with Abbey Road is an honour. I mean, these guys have literally seen close to a century of music fame and history. Their deep roots in both the international artist scene and the music business give us a competitive edge in getting access to the right people and the necessary credibility to actually form partnerships with them.”

With the latest major update of the  Uberchord app, now you can:

• Create Personal profiles for enabling learning statistics, schedule daily reminders and personalized workouts.
• Set your own goals and track your daily, weekly or monthly progress
• The world’s first musical workout: Strengthen your weak chords by hitting the “daily workout” button in the profile
• A composition engine that creates personalized exercises from your existing chord repertoire that sounds like music.
• Advanced Learning Path with finger-twisting chord shapes for you pros out there
• Guitar monitor (playthrough): if you are using an electric guitar, you can now hear it through your headphones or any connected sound system.
• Works now with background amp modelling. Activate background audio in apps like GarageBand, Amplitube, or Ampkit and play with the coolest sounds
• Audio setting screen: activate guitar monitor and mix it together with the drums.

UPDATE: We have just been informed about the demise of the legendary Beatles producer Sir George Martin, the mastermind who was responsible for bringing The Beatles into Abbey Road Studios back in 1962. It really saddens us to know that he is no longer with us while his legacy and music will live on forever and ever. We wish and pray for strength and harmony for his family and friends. Here is a video interview of Sir George Martin done by BBC One back in 1998 where he shares his life experiences and his work on the last album at the Abbey Road Studios after working in the recording business for 46 years.

The post Uberchord Selected For Abbey Road Studios First Accelerator Program appeared first on Uberchord App.

Everyone who has to create chord chart and sheets and embed them in a blog knows how tedious the process is and that in most cases the results don’t even look nice. Then, when you readers actually want to use such sheets, the print results are awful, because of the low image resolution.

This is why we created the Uberchord SVG chord rendering engine. It’s powerful, easy to use and delivers supreme, crisp results that look good anywhere — even on a sheet of paper.

Example 1: Embed chords with a single line of code

This is the most straight forward example of how to use the rendering engine inside a blog or any website. You use our code generator or simply write one line of code yourself and embed it anywhere in your blog.

Example 2: Customization

Here we have more complex chords, hid the Uberchord Icon and added a title and description will be shown once you click on the “open” link.

If you are interested in using Uberchord’s rendering engine: it’s free. Shoot us an email.

The post Embed a Chord Chart on Your Website using Uberchord’s Rendering Engine appeared first on Uberchord App.

Events like NAMM are a showcase of the consistently stunning results when innovation meets technology. This is the event where all the crazy new products cooking up in the proverbial lab are revealed to the world. New guitar learning applications where in-app purchases will see songs directly emailed into the fibres of your hand. Guitars that tune, play and even trash themselves. We’re honoured to be rubbing shoulders with some truly amazing companies, both new and established. For your ogling pleasure we’ve decided to compile a roundup of some of our favourite products on show this year.

1. Martin Guitars

SS-Omvine-1   /   D-222 100th Anniversary   /   D-28 John Lennon 75th Anniversary

Martin Guitars is a company which has been around for a very long while indeed. Their ‘dreadnought’ style of acoustic guitars pretty much changed the trajectory of how guitars were to look forever after, becoming the most imitated body size in the world. To celebrate an entire century since the original guitar was produced, Martin are using the NAMM show to introduce the D-222, a limited edition revisit of their classic design, SS-Omvine 2016, D-28 John Lennon 75th Anniversary Edition and few others.

2. St. Vincent

This is a signature guitar made by Ernie Ball with the artist St. Vincent. If you know St Vincent, like St Vincent and want to sound like St Vincent, then this might be for you. There’s literally nothing else to be said.

3. Soundbrenner

Touting the ‘first wearable device for musicians’, the applications of this metronome watch are immediate and obvious. Instead of hearing a tortuous metronome click, Soundbrenner‘s product conveys tempo using vibrations for a more bodily approach to musicianship.

Soundbrenner‘s angle is the revolution of the metronome ‘experience’. Metronomes have been a fixture of the musician’s life for centuries. They’re not especially great fun. Nobody has ever said that they love playing to a metronome, but all serious musicians realise the benefits of practising with one. What Soundbrenner aims to do is inject some fun into the chore of metronome practice. An ambitious foray into what could very well be the next dimension of music technology, this idea seems very cool indeed. We can’t wait to try it out.

4. EVH (Eddie Van Halen pedal)

For those special people who want to take emulation of Eddie Van Halen to new, staggering heights, this pedal from Jim Dunlop does precisely that. Check out the videos from Guitar World below.

5. Electro-Harmonix

Digital titans Electro-Harmonix will be at NAMM in force. Following the age-old company traditional of revisiting the past and cyclically churning our digital remakes, EHX have released Lester G and Lester K, their pair of rotary-speaker emulation pedals.

6. ACPAD

No, not a dyslexic and slightly dim AC/DC tribute band, but the company which has launched the world’s first wireless MIDI controller. I think this product has a fairly singular audience; if you’re the kind of person who reckons he could benefit from having instant access to an virtual orchestra while playing guitar, then this is right up your street. Buskers take note; this is an opportunity to serious up your game.

Aesthetically, if you’re a fan of aged and vintage looking guitars then be warned that this device, slim and streamlined as it is, definitely adds an unmistakeable sci-fi vibe to your instrument. The cool thing is however, is that the ACPAD is easy to take on and off. Dusky Johnny Cash cover for one song, sonic recreation of an asteroid field for the next. The future is about choices, people.

7. Roadietuner

A real solution for a real problem. Roadietuner is a guitar tuner which looks somewhere between a breathalyser and a high-tech vaporiser. It is clipped onto each peg as you tune each string in turn. Not satisfied with merely showing you how to correct your pitch, Roadietuner works like a motorised wrench by actually twisting the peg, tuning the string with mechanical accuracy.

I’m not sure what fickle combination of factors have to be in place for a single product to explode into ubiquity, but if Roadietuner plays its cards right, this could genuinely be revolutionary – a product to be found in every guitarist’s gig bag alongside spare strings and a capo duster. It also connects to your smartphone. Because 2016.

8. Fender Bassbreaker Series

Fender, with all of its longstanding clout and contribution to amplified music, doesn’t really need to bring out anything new. It could simply rest on its (legendary) laurels and still turn over a monstrous profit by selling its existing guitar and amplifier range until the end of days. However, carrying the same creative zeal which birthed products like the Stratocaster and Twin Reverb, the company has finally lifted the lid on its latest oblation: the Fender Bassbreaker series. Like the classic and equally misleadingly-named Fender Bassman, these amplifiers are very much suitable for guitars, and promise a novel and ballsy take on modern amplification.

Fender, presumably after a marketing meeting where everyone left the room feeling especially pleased with themselves, have been promoting this range as some sort of twisted sonic abomination which has finally been unshackled and allowed to crawl out of the dungeon into the rainy night. According to their website, this range of amps promises ‘Fender DNA with a twist’, allowing players to ‘explore the dark side’. Indeed. We’ll be there at NAMM, crucifixes in hand.

9. Virtual Jeff

Virtual Jeff, brainchild of FOMOfx, is a whammy bar without being a whammy bar. Similar to the ACPAD, it’s a slap-on digital accessory which aims to nullify the hassles of a real, ‘mechanical’ vibrato system. These include fiddly installation which may likely depreciate the value of an older guitar as well as the everyday pain points of tuning issues or broken strings. Attach Virtual Jeff to your guitar and enjoy the instant tonal reach of a whammy bar without the commitment or risks of the real thing.

This is it people, the unstoppable charge of digitalisation. It first crushed our cameras under its hooves, then our televisions sets, then our cigarettes. Now even the way we play guitar is sought to being improved and made as painless as possible. In theory, products like Virtual Jeff seem fantastic, a well-targeted product with very reasonable aims. For all of its sleek functionality however, it is ultimately up to the worldwide community of guitarists and guitar nerds to make the final verdict on Virtual Jeff.

10. A Little Thunder

Bassists are a bitch to find. It seems guitar players are a dime a dozen but competent bassists are a scarce commodity around the world. A Little Thunder seems to remedy this issue by removing them from the equation altogether. Yeah. F**k them, anyway. The concept works by introducing a pickup which, at the flip of a switch, lowers the frequential output of the low E and A strings, effectively turning them into bass strings. Although the idea may seem a little gimmicky at first, the company’s earnest product video features a heavily-edited flurry of cameos by moderately well-known guitarists, all unanimous in their praise of the pickup’s sound and functionality.

If you dig the idea, A Little Thunder allows you take it even further by splitting the signal through different amplification. Your bottom two strings will come out through a bass amplifier, while the rest of your strings through a normal amplifier. Interesting.

The post The 10 Hottest Guitar Products: NAMM 2016 appeared first on Uberchord App.

With a large GUI that can be seen on any iOS device Uberchord will show you the right way to play chords with the correct finger positions. Using the inbuilt microphone of your iPhone or iPad, Uberchord “listens” to your playing and gives you instant feedback on your progress. The app includes real-time exercises that let you rehearse at your own pace and keeps a record of the chords and patterns you’ve practised. Uberchord is your personalised guitar tutor ready with the next lesson anytime you want without the stress.

Here are five great things about Uberchord.

1. Large and easy to read chord diagrams.

Uberchord is designed with smart phones in mind — although it works just as well on an iPad. The GUI is very clear even on smaller screens. Still, if you have problems seeing any of the interface at all then tapping on the illustrations zooms in for better look. You won’t be squinting at tiny pictures and trying to figure them out.

2. Chord exercises with real world examples.

Sure, at the very beginning levels Uberchord will show you just the basic chords and how to play them. The exercises prompt you to learn the alternate chords in each lesson, switching to and fro to get your fingers used to moving around the fret board. But it’s not long before you’re playing actual tunes. There are a million songs based around these fundamental chord progressions and Uberchord quickly introduces you to exercises that echo familiar tunes you hear on the radio every day. Sooner than you think, you’ll be unlocking your inner Jimi Hendrix and the Eagles to name just a few. That’s what you want to do, right? Be playing real songs as soon as you can? Uberchord will show you how.

3. You can build your own chord exercises.

Every guitar player discovers their own problem chords — the ones your fingers just don’t want to play. The only remedy is to practise these troublesome chords until they become as easy and natural as the simpler ones — and that will happen with regular rehearsing. Uberchord allows you to create unique exercises that can focus on the chords that are driving you nuts (but you know there’s only that one solution). Advanced players can use this function to program in chord progressions that need extra practise. It’s not just beginners who can get their fingers tangled up.

4. The Chord Finder function.

This works brilliantly in two ways. First, perhaps a music chart or another band member (it’ll be the pesky piano player) wants you to play a certain slightly obscure chord? All you have to do is enter that chord into Uberchord and the app will display all the possible Root Positions you can play plus the potential inversions, too. If the chord can be played on a guitar, Uberchord will show you how to do it. The second Chord Finder functions works in reverse. You might play a nice-sounding chord without actually knowing what it is (we’ve all been doing that for years). Uberchord will listen to your chord and identify it, displaying the name on the screen. That’s pretty clever, right?

5. The new alternate tunings in Uberchord opens up a whole world of cool sounds.

Alternate tunings can make your guitar sound beautiful and rich with open strings creating most of the tones. However, it means all those standard chord shapes get thrown out the window — with your strings tuned differently they don’t apply anymore. So what chords are you playing? The Chord Finder still works! Anything you play can be recognised by the app and displayed. Alternatively, learning how to play familiar tunes in that alternate tuning (giving the song an awesome new sound) is done by simply entering the chord into the Chord Finder and Uberchord will show you the correct fingering with that tuning. The free version of Uberchord includes Open D tuning. In-app purchases can add more options from a large list of other popular alternate tunings.

As you can see Uberchord offers great functions for both beginners learning their first chords and experienced players looking for solutions when the charts — or the songs — get challenging.

The post Want to learn guitar? Here are 5 reasons to try Uberchord appeared first on Uberchord App.

Uberchord is an app for iOS, featuring not just didactic guidance but also a few other nifty ideas. Although Youtube can offer a wealth of information and lessons for the budding guitarist, many learners come inevitably to the point where they rue having never had their bad habits addressed by a real teacher. Enter Uberchord, an app which can actually listen to the guitarist and correct them in real time. This is the beginning of the future. We are curious about what separates Uberchord from the countless other guitar tools out there. How can the app detect, register and process the sound of a real guitar, and how much application does such a tool really have?

History

Uberchord Engineering is a German firm based in Berlin. Co-founders Eckart Burgwedel and Simon Barkow-Oesterreicher began working on their idea for a guitar learning app as early as 2011. Wanting to rise above the competition, they focused on creating a pedagogic tool offering real-time feedback, combined with playful elements seen in game design. The app was made to function ‘acoustically’ – without the need to plug in the guitar via an adaptor. The challenge was set, and after two years of hard work the team finally submitted their chord-recognition technology for patenting, and the foundation of Uberchord Engineering was laid.

Design and Construction

The Uberchord app is currently being tested across its two main features: Chord Trainer and Chord Finder. Chord Trainer provides various exercises for different skill levels. The magic of Uberchord rests on its chord detection software. The user plays the chords which are displayed on the screen. The app listens, either over the device’s microphone or through a guitar jack via iRig, and will correct the guitarist if he incorrectly fingers a chord. The microphone and soundchip in the device are incredibly important, and are the reasons why Uberchord can currently only offer the app on iOS. The Apple operating system extends to only a few lines of gadgets such as the iPhone and iPad. This ensures a certain consistency of quality in regard to the integral components of its devices, which an app like Uberchord is dependant on. Android devices however, are many and different, and a nascent company such as Uberchord simply would not have the resources to cater for all potential configurations of hardware.

Accordingly, Uberchord have focused on one system. The app itself is free, offering a handful of in-app purchases. In the near future, the app also plans to offer a premium model. Currently Uberchord is running at about 10% of what it plans for the future, and what the technology affords. Uberchord doesn’t want to be constrained by chord training, and intends to expand into rhythmic exercises for the right hand too. Song practice is also in the works, although issues concerning rights and royalties must first be negotiated.

Uberchord In Practice

Here goes. We start a quick run-through and promptly check the famed chord recognition ability of our new virtual guitar teacher. Opening the app yields the binary choice between Chord Trainer and Chord Finder. We begin with Chord Trainer and arrive at a page with several different exercises.

Under the title ‘Beginner Exercises II: The Most Common Chords’ we find twenty-four different chord exercises, which also incorporate open strings. I pick Number 24; Hotel California and up pops up a screen overviewing the diagrams of all necessary chords in the song. We press the play button to start the exercises.

Uberchord displays the first chord – in this case an A minor, which must then be strummed. If the app hears the chord played correctly, the next chord is then shown, and so on. We are corrected in real time if we make a mistake. This time round, I am using an acoustic guitar, and the app picks up on every mistake mercilessly. With a direct connection via guitar cable, I’m told the app is even more precise. The performance through the microphone is nonetheless astonishing, especially if one takes care to reduce background noise to a minimum.

To the right of the chord diagram is ‘Chord Mastery’, which displays how consistently you’ve been nailing the chord exercise. 100% mastery is reached after you successfully play the same chord 150 times. This allows one to track his progress over time. Similar to a sports app, all progress on Uberchord is logged and the statistics can be called up through the chord diagram. The exercises aren’t limited to what’s already on the app. With the Song/Exercise Editor it is possible to create your own songs and exercises for use in the app. There’s also a handy feature to share these with other Uberchord users.

Now to the Chord Finder feature. Many self-taught guitarists play according to their ear and have a vast array of different chords under their fingers. They may not however, have the academic knowledge to explain these chords to others. The Chord Finder analyses and identifies what you’ve played, meaning you can impress your keyboardist by explaining how the chorus to your new songs begins with an E minor (add 9).

This feature works quickly and smoothly. We press the microphone button, strum a chord and the app reveals what we’ve just played along with a helpful diagram – impressive, no doubt. There are occasionally minor difficulties in audio recognition for chords featuring lower strings, but the success rate is still very high indeed.

For that alone the app is worth downloading. After the chord has been recognised and you’ve pressed the arrow-symbol, more information is readily available on the tones of the chord and all of its inversions. Hopefully this will help when your annoyingly well-educated keyboardist throws out unsolicited advice on voice leadings.

If a valued bandmate says that a Cm (maj 79) would be just perfect for a song in question, then the Chord Search function again proves its worth. We simply enter the name of the chord into the app and at an instant can see diagrams depicting the chord spread across all positions on the fretboard.

Until now we’ve only played in standard tuning, although our digital guitar teacher also has other variants to offer. Standard and Open D are free, but others are available to buy for 99 cents as an in-app purchase. At the time of the test, these amount to 17 different tunings.

Here are all the common open tunings such as Drop D, Open G, Open E and also some somewhat more special ones like Open G Minor or Open E Major 7. This is a fiddly job, as every new tuning radically affects the names and searching of chords. For that purpose, 99 cents is a small price to pay for quite a sensible investment in your guitar education.

So what’s the Verdict?

Awesome! The Uberchord app works superbly. Its programmers have truly delivered a wonderful piece of work. A ringing chord from a guitar is registered through the device’s microphone. At this point, Uberchord’s patented Chord Trainer provides immediate visual feedback on whether the chord is being played correctly or not. Certainly there were moments where the software didn’t correctly identify the chord, especially those featuring the thicker, bass strings. Generally however, the success rate lay around 90%.

Ultimately, it would be wrong to complain considering the app is free of charge! In addition, Uberchord comes furnished with a vast library of chords which are displayed in every position. As a result, searching for chords is an incredibly easy and quick process. Using its audio recognition software against this huge chord database, Uberchord is also deft at identifying any new or strange chords that you may stumble upon. We cannot recommend this enough for iOS users! As a 99 cent in-app purchase, users can also buy the support for additional tunings. Uberchord is being constantly refined and expanded. We can only be excited for whatever new developments the Uberchord team will cook up next!

Pros

• FREE!
• Chord recognition through either the device’s inbuilt microphone or by plugging in instrument
• Good performance and interface
• Chord Trainer

Cons

• None!

Thanks again Bonedo for the review. If you want to see the original review published in German, you can check it out here.

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Technology is a funny thing. It creates a need for items we never really wanted or offers a solution for problems we never really had. The slightly more jovial upshot of this is that it has improved our lives beyond recognition, which even the most cynical futurephobe would struggle to deny. The music learning process has also been kissed by the tech gods. Powerful apps have entered the market which can quite effectively substitute piles of books or hours of lessons. Chord finders do just this, and we will be briefly combing over the main reasons how apps, such as Uberchord, can assist if not rejuvenate your guitar learning.

One of Uberchord’s main features is its Chord Finder. You can browse the large interactive library to look up all finger positions for virtually all guitar chords. If you can play it, Uberchord will know it.

Are you an Android user? Don’t worry! Uberchord has also launched the  chord finder for the Web so you don’t miss out!

Virtual Chord Book

Traditionally, a child would be accompanied to a music store by acquiescing parents. Following a brief conversation, he would walk out excitedly clutching a starter guitar pack and a convenient book listing basic chords. Nowadays, chord finder apps pretty much constitute a virtual encyclopedia on every chord which has ever existed. Not only does this save the need for periodically buying new paper books, but it also bears huge benefits for the advanced/expert guitarist. Unrestrained by matters of physical space, chord finders allow for instant access to every mathematical permutation of every chord. Musicians often need only the slightest spark of inspiration to set the songwriting process in motion, and chord finder apps are the perfect hack for broadening your musical vocabulary.

Instant Chord Recognition

Ever been noodling around and came across a chord that sounded neat, but you had no way to identify? Back in the day, and by that I mean a few years ago, you would have to enter each note manually into prehistoric and wildly cumbersome chord recognition software. Apps are a lot more sophisticated. To pause briefly on what exactly an app is, it’s a computer program that allows you to harness the processing power and features of your device for a specific, third-party purpose. As smartphones become exponentially more powerful, chord finders now have the ability to utilize your device’s in-built microphone. This means that while you’re strumming away on your guitar, the app can register what you’re playing and give you precise feedback in real-time. They can tell you instantly what chord you are playing, and if you’re slightly off; how to correct your fingering.

Like it or not, technology and apps are encroaching into every aspect of life. Although the digital floodgates have barely just opened, thousands of companies across the world are energetically pushing forward the frontier of technological possibilities. Uberchord contains one of the most powerful and sophisticated chord finders available on the market. It also offers an array of other essential guitarist’s tools, comprising an invaluable didactic program for guitarists both new and experienced. But don’t just take our word for it, try it for yourself here or download the app.

The post Why you need a Chord Finder appeared first on Uberchord App.

I don’t know how many times I have daydreamed of saying those very three words in the last few years. From its inception up to today’s launch, I’ve poured more sweat, tears and blood into this than anything else in my life.

Uberchord is designed to help you learn guitar chords

The app registers a guitar being played through the device’s built-in microphone and provides instant feedback to what you’re playing. We had been wanting this ourselves for many years and building it was a real quest. Looking forward however, this journey has only really just begun.

We expected the audio recognition technology to be the hardest part, which it duly was. It took us a full two years to get it working. When we finally filed the patent last November, we could hardly believe it ourselves. It’s really the first time that polyphonic pitch recognition (a.k.a. chord recognition) has been able to make sense of complex guitar chords in real-time, including the most evil of Jazz chords. We accordingly gave our technology the name ‘ChordSense’.

ChordSense is a great start, and we will even take it further. ChordSense makes it possible to learn guitar chords like never before, with interactive visual feedback. We tested it with countless guitars and in almost all cases it worked exceptionally well. Being the Swiss and German perfectionists that we are, however, we already have ChordSense 2.0 deep in production. We expect it to be even faster and more precise. We’ve already been approached by several players of the music industry and naturally, we are open to collaboration.

Realtime Chord Recognition Was No Easy Task

While the technology development was a cheerful valley of death, the real surprise was how hard it would be to create the actual app. Music apps often have very cluttered interfaces and we wanted to reduce it to the max. Uberchord looks really simple on the surface, but it’s loaded with technology underneath. At its peak we had eight iOS engineers working simultaneously on this, and those gentlemen were no rookies.

we hope you will enjoy using it as much as we did creating it

Uberchord is finally in the App Store today and I’m so incredibly proud of this team that I have the honor to work with. We’re a crazy bunch of software professionals who happen to love music and have set out to change the way we learn our instruments. Uberchord 1.0 won’t change everything straight away, but we do hope it will make a difference when you begin to learn guitar chords. In fact, we hope you will enjoy using it as much as we did creating it. And obviously, it doesn’t stop here.

That said, we are certainly aware that new products might have bugs and other unexpected problems. If you do have any issues or suggestions for improvement, please drop us a line at support@uberchord.com.

We’ll take it from here and push it further. It’s a long walk to musical freedom but we are looking forward to every single next step — a bit foolish maybe, but definitely hungry. ;-)

Sincerely,
Eckart Burgwedel

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