About

It's bothered me for some time that stringed instruments seem so complex to learn to play. So I've spent a few weeks trying to seek to the heart of the matter. The result is this website and an inkscape extension.

The website sets out what I hope is a good way to discover how to play any given stringed instrument (starting with the ukulele as a basis because of its relative simplicity with only four strings).

The inkscape extension (available here) allows anyone to create and printout diagrams at any resolution.
For a selected instrument it creates diagrams of:
  • Selected notes from predefined chords, 
  • A single note shown in all chords,
  • Songs (user defined series of note/chord pairs)
  • Chord Signatures - the special sauce that tells you all you need to know to play a specific instrument and tuning.
  • A chord explorer which shows you ALL the ways to make a given note in a given chord.
Inkscape is an opensource Vector drawing program that runs on Mac, Windows, Linux. A free replacement for tools like Adobe Illustrator. IMHO its better in every way but don't take my word for it - try it yourself (download page).