What's new
What changed, newest first. Each line links to the change itself on GitHub, if you're curious how it was made. Help says how to use it all, and How it decides why it chooses what it does.
October 2026
31 October 2026
- Two Five One now lives at 251jazz.com; chordscalemaker.com links, song and share links included, take you there.
- Saved charts on chordscalemaker.com can move to 251jazz.com in one click: a notice there opens the new site and brings them across, with Back up as the file way.#894
- With Change Key on, the Changes sheet now shows each chorus in its key as it plays: chords, guide tones, scales and numerals. Stop brings back the written key.#893
30 October 2026
- The home page opens on a sheet: the chart you last played, else the tune of the day, ready to Start. Search for a tune from the bar at the top of every page.#884
- A 6/9 chord now reads as one: D6/9 in the standard look, and D with its ⁶⸍⁹ raised in the Real Book's, where a chart had D69.#884
- Chord Scale Maker is now Two Five One: a new name and a new mark, the ii V⁷ I monogram, for an app that does far more than chord scales. Any standard, layer by layer.#884
- Sheets now take the Real Book's look: a handwritten staff, title and chord symbols in the fake book's shorthand (C–⁷, B♭△⁷). The note beside the light/dark switch turns the standard look back on.#880
- The Changes sheet now starts clean, as a lead sheet: Numerals and Scales start off, one tap each to show the analysis under the chords.#874
- On the Changes sheet a 2nd ending that starts a new line sits under its 1st ending, as in the Real Book, and the 1st and 2nd ending brackets now show on lines without guide tones.#871
- On the Changes sheet a bar of 16th-note 7th chords with many accidentals stays inside its bar: its last beat and chord symbol no longer draw over the next bar's.#870
29 October 2026
- On the Changes sheet, a line too dense for four bars now splits its whole section to two bars a line, so a section's lines no longer go 2, 2, 4, 2, 2.#849
- On an iPhone or iPad the click and the band play on with the screen locked, and show in Now Playing, whose Pause and Play stop and start them.#842
- The click’s beat lights wait out your speakers’ or headphones’ delay, so they light with the beat you hear, Bluetooth included.#839
- A Brazilian chart picks its band: under Comping, Band lists the eight Brazilian bands, the style’s own first, and the one you pick brings its groove, so Tico-Tico can play as a samba or a bossa as a choro, at that groove’s tempo until you set your own. The chart remembers it.#834
- The Brazilian tunes from iReal Pro play their own grooves: 50 sambas (Samba de Orfeu, Coisa Feita), the baiões (Asa Branca, Vera Cruz), the afoxés (Madalena), the choros (Carinhoso), A Banda’s marcha, and the ballads as a slow bossa nova, each with the tempo its style starts at. The bossas stay Bossa Nova.#833
- The Choro groove’s piano comps like the book’s guitar part, four short chords to a 2/4 bar, and lightens to Cliff Korman’s two at a phrase’s end.#832
- The Choro groove plays a real pandeiro: the thumb’s open bass, the fingertips and the heel, on Paulo Braga’s accents, in place of the hi-hat that imitated it. Tico-Tico no Fubá now plays it, as the choro it is.#830
- Two new drum sounds for the Brazilian grooves: the Baião head plays a real triangle, muted and open (Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section), and every eighth bar of the Frevo ends on a buzz roll (Ed Uribe).#829
- A 2/4 chart under the Bossa, Samba, Partido alto or Baião groove plays each figure whole in every written bar, a slot a 16th, as the Choro already did: Manuel o Audaz no longer drops the second half of each figure.#827
- Under a two-feel the bass no longer walks two bars of quarters running where the piano lays out: a fill no longer follows the bar it walks into a phrase, or the other way round.#826
- Play along plays every bar of Aquarela do Brasil, Canto de Ossanha, Don Quixote and Lua Soberana: a D.S. al Coda now leaves from the ending or the bar that holds its coda sign, and a D.C. inside a written-out repeat waits for its last pass.#825
- Frevo and Marcha-rancho grooves: the frevo phrase on the snare, fast with a walking bass and a double-time hi-hat behind the solos, or slow on brushes, after Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section.#824
- A Choro groove for choro charts: a light pandeiro on the hi-hat over the surdo’s kick, a melodic bass on each chord’s own bass note, and Cliff Korman’s light comp, after Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section. In a 2/4 chart its figures run in 16ths.#823
- An Afoxé groove for afoxé and ijexá charts: a true 4/4, the hi-hat’s 16ths and the kick on 2 and 4 and their ands, with a jazz ride behind the solos, after Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section.#821
- A Baião groove: Márcio Bahia’s baião on the drums, the zabumba’s figure in the bass and piano, with Hermeto Pascoal’s group as its band. Creek now plays it.#819
- A Partido alto groove: one two-bar figure through the drums, bass and piano, after Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section, with Brooklyn High’s rhythm section as its band. A chart can start its Brazilian two-bar figures a bar on (orientation: B-A), and a section can name its own groove (groove: samba), like a partido tune’s samba bridge.#818
- With Chord tones on strong beats and an Approach, a guide tone line leads into every strong beat, not only the chord changes: a chord held over beat 3 or into the next bar is struck again there, its 7th and 3rd by turns, each with the approach figure before it.#816
- Corrected composer credits on 19 of the new Brazilian tunes (Rosa Morena is Dorival Caymmi’s, Sozinho is Peninha’s, Preciso Me Encontrar is Candeia’s, and more) and the spelling of four titles, among them Luz do Sol and A Flor e o Espinho.#815
28 October 2026
- Ballads get their own band: under the click’s ⋯, Comping, a ballad chart now offers Band too, and every player plays his ballad way, softer, the piano holding its chords, most bassists in two. The Ballad keeps its own band apart from your Swing one. The Comping menu is tidier: Change Tempo and Change Key (By 4ths, By 1/2 Step) share a row, the players fold under In the style of, and the Space slider is gone (each pianist leaves out bars his own way).
- On the stand, the page turns itself when the band crosses onto the next one, and comes back round with the form; a page you turn by hand stays until then.#817
- 190 of the new Brazilian tunes now name a notable recording on their song page, most with a video: the composer’s own first recording where there is one (Ivan Lins, Djavan, Jobim, Chico Buarque), else the release that made the song known.#812
- A samba chart plays a Samba groove of its own, from the samba’s sources: the kick leaning on 3 like a surdo, Edison Machado’s ride at a medium tempo or the tamborim’s teleco-teco on the cross-stick faster, Stagnaro’s bass with the 5th under the root, and the piano off the beat, holding its chords long every other chorus. Its band is the Rio 65 Trio. A samba’s click starts at 200, an up samba at 220, a bright one at 240.#811
- On the stand, tap the page’s left or right edge, swipe, or scroll to turn it, and the screen stays awake while focus mode is open.#809
- The Bossa groove plays what the bossa books print: the hi-hat's foot on 2 and 4, the piano's chord changes an 8th early, and the bass on the root and the 5th under it.#801
- Focus mode is a music stand: one page at a time, fitted to the screen, turned by the arrow keys, Page Up and Down, Space or Enter, so a Bluetooth page-turner pedal works in any of its modes; ‹ › and the page count sit in the bar.#800
- 220 Brazilian tunes from iReal Pro join the library under the style Brazilian: Jobim, Ivan Lins, Djavan, Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and more. 21 are second charts of a tune, labeled iRealPro in the song page’s version picker (Desafinado’s chart in its original key, iRealPro Original). A Brazilian chart plays the Bossa groove, straight.#793
- A bossa chart plays its own band: under the click’s ⋯, Comping, Band names Getz/Gilberto, 1964 (Antônio Carlos Jobim, Sebastião Neto, Milton Banana), each player with his level and Mute. Its players stay its own, never offered under Swing or the Ballad.#783
- Song pages open without jumping: the sheet keeps its place as it draws, and the recording below it stays put.#782
- A pinned note now leads smoothly: after it the guide tone line steps to the nearer guide tone on its own, and moving a pin back to the line’s own note clears it. In the pick popovers, Sheet’s choice is now Default.#780
- A note pin can now be any pitch: ↑ ↓ (or ▲ ▼ in its popover) move it a half step, ⇧↑ ⇧↓ an octave, and the label under the staff names it by its degree from the chord’s root (♯11, ♭9, 13), so a guide tone line can reach for colour as well as the 3rd and 7th.#779
- Choose your band: on a swing chart, under the click’s ⋯, Comping, Band picks a rhythm section from a record (Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones; Bud Powell, Curly Russell and Max Roach; Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian; and more), or choose the pianist, bassist and drummer one by one, each with their own level and mute.#777
27 October 2026
- Song pages no longer jump as the sheets draw: each line and staff keeps its place from the start.#776
- The site loads faster: pages no longer carry the whole library’s charts; each song’s chart comes with its page.#775
- Pin a guide tone: on From 3rd or From 7th, click a chord’s 3 or 7 under the staff to choose its note and octave, and the line re-fits from it. Arrow keys move along the line and nudge the note; ⌘Z undoes a pin; a share link carries them.#773
- The ride no longer swells and falls back under every drummer: that shading was after Tony Williams, and is now his alone.#765
- Fix: under Riffs (after Horace Silver) the bass no longer plays a single beat and drops out where the piano leaves a chord bare: with no riff to follow it plays in two, root and 5th, and a riff of a stab or two is held to the next.#762
- The drums now move to the ride’s bell now and then for a lift: under Off-beats (Philly Joe Jones), Ramp (Jimmy Cobb), Riffs (Art Blakey) and Quartal (Elvin Jones), about half the choruses take a bridge, a last A, or the bars building into a section on the bell.#750
- Fix: Quartal (after McCoy Tyner) no longer strikes the same chord over and over: the 4ths stack moves a step up or down the scale between strikes, as Tyner’s does, and never sounds three times running.#740
- Fix: the Lines no longer write a double flat or sharp: a chord tone, a scale note or a guide tone that would need one is respelled, as lead sheets write it, so the ♯5 of B7♯5 is G, not F𝄪, and the ♭5 of E♭–7♭5 is A, not B𝄫. The Arpeggios and Patterns sheets spell their chord tones the same way.#741
- Reset, at the foot of the Reharm menu: every alternate back to the chart’s own (a library chart’s as published, none on a chart of your own), in one step, the rest of your edits kept.#737
- Superimpose has Upper structure: each chord’s upper-structure triad over it as a slash symbol (A♭/C7), Levine’s choices first over a dominant, with a pick per chord and a Line that plays the triads whole.#742
- Approach has a Random choice: each chord gets one of the nine figures, dealt afresh every time you open the chart, with a Shuffle button to deal again. A share link carries the deal, and a chart saved as yours keeps it.#739
- The ride cymbal no longer plays every bar at the same levels: after Tony Williams, it swells and falls back over a few bars and each stroke varies a little, while 2 and 4 still lean.#735
26 October 2026
- Octave, in Line options under the Cells line’s Order: move each cell’s 2nd, 3rd or 4th note an octave, the other way from the move into it, for wider lines (after Randy Vincent: 1 2 3 5 with its 5 an octave down).#725
- Chord tones on strong beats is hidden under 7th Chords with no Approach, where every note is a chord tone already and it changed nothing.#727
- The click’s settings are tidier: every choice is labelled (Count-in, Ramp, All keys, Sound), the rows line up, the time, practice tools, band and Mix are set apart, and every control explains itself when you hover.#723
- In the click’s Mix, the row that taps the sheet’s rhythm on a rim is called Click Track.#722
- The loop’s two choices above the click’s tabs are labelled: Loop and Between rounds.#721
- Fix: the chromatic cells no longer write a double flat or sharp: the ♭9 over D♭7 is D, not E𝄫, and over A♭7 A, not B𝄫.#714
- The brushes are gone: they didn’t sound right. Sustained (after Paul Motian) now plays broken time on sticks, the ride with a cross-stick 3 against 2 now and then; Strum (after Denzil Best) a light four on the ride; and the Ballad groove a soft ride with a cross-stick on 2 and 4.#719
- The click’s ⋯ has no tabs now: the sheet decides what plays. On the Changes it’s the band, Comping, with the count-in, the Swing dial, Ramp, All keys, the comping style and the Mix; on the Scales, Arpeggios and Patterns it’s the click alone, Metronome. On the Changes the click’s button says so: Add comping.#710
- The piano you hear is now a Yamaha C3, Bengt Nilsson’s Headroom Piano, with its room in the sound: warmer under a line and under the changes than the Salamander Grand it replaces.#720
- Play along: with the click running, the Changes sheet lights the bar you’re in (and the chord, in a bar with more than one) and scrolls to keep it in view, unless you’re scrolling yourself. And Loop, above the click’s tabs under ⋯: play a section or any bars (From … To) round and round, with a bar or two of the click alone Between rounds if you like; the Ramp and the Keys count its rounds, and the chart remembers it.#709
- Switching the Line on a long chart is faster: lines the switch leaves as they were are no longer drawn twice, about half the wait from Off on a 70-bar tune.#712
- Fix: the band no longer plays straight 8ths when the click’s Feel is Quarters. The ride’s skip note, the piano and the bass swing with the Swing dial (now shown under Quarters too), so a riff locks with the snare’s triplets again; only Straight straightens them.#700
- Hear line and Hear rhythm are now rows of the click’s Mix (⋯, Comping): Line, there whenever the sheet has a Line, starts muted; Rhythm starts on; unmute or mute them there. The Metronome tab is the click alone. A muted track’s slider greys out.#708
- The click’s beat dots are gone: they ran behind the sound. Folded (the chevron, as on a phone), the click now keeps Hear line beside Start and the tempo.#705
- Standard and alternate draws each set’s guide-tone line on a small staff, the chord symbol over each note and the 3rd or 7th under it, so the step or the half step into the next chord shows at a glance.#701
- Reharmonization (Beta): on the Changes sheet, with the editor off, click a chord for its substitutions (a tritone sub, a ii before it, a back door and more, by the sheet’s level); a choice becomes the bar’s alternate and plays Alternate, and Back to standard undoes it. The Reharm menu beside Changes reharmonizes the whole tune at once (Tritone sub every V7, ii before every dominant, Back door to the tonic), and Standard and alternate, under the sheet, compares the two guide-tone lines wherever they differ and says what changed.#698
- Bars per line, under ⋯ on the Changes sheet: Auto (four on a wide screen and in print, two on a phone), 2, 4 or 8. And a line too dense to read, 16ths with their accents for one, now splits into two even halves instead of crowding its notes together.#693
25 October 2026
- One interface for now: Intermediate, where every browser starts, has taken in Essentials (the sheet, instrument, transposing, printing, sharing and editing), so a new browser opens with the scale level, the analysis rows, lines, Practice and the ready-made rhythms in view. A browser that chose Essentials opens at Intermediate. The Interface choice under ⋯ returns with Everything.#692
- At Intermediate the rhythms come without accents (8ths, Triplets, 16ths, 8ths in 3…), and an Accents toggle beside the Rhythm puts them back: the accents are your choice. The exercises start plain too; turn on Accents in Arpeggios in 3 to hear them drift across the beats.#689
- Guide Tones under Play in rhythm lead into every half note with the Approach, as eighths at the end of the note before (an enclosure: two eighths into each half note); in a faster rhythm, an Approach with more notes than the chord has spare attacks plays its last notes instead of being left out.#683
- On a chart that ends at a Fine or a Coda (a D.C. or D.S.), the band’s chorus now ends there too: the drum fill and the next chorus’s crash fall on the bar the form ends on, and under Ramp the switch into four comes after it, not after the last bar drawn.#681
- Each chorus of the Swing and Bossa grooves now draws afresh, so a long play-along no longer repeats the same chorus note for note; a drum fill at a chorus’s end crashes on the next one’s 1. Under Ramp the arc runs across choruses: the first in two, four from the second.#678
- The Swing groove’s drums now hear the band: they catch the piano’s pushes with the bass, leave the beat before one they don’t catch clear, answer in a bar the piano leaves out unless the bass fills it, and keep plain time under a busy piano.#677
- The Swing groove’s drums now play the comping style’s feel, after a drummer on such a record, in place of the same ride and hi-hat under every style: Philly Joe Jones’s off-beats and riffs under Off-beats, Max Roach’s bombs under Shells, Paul Motian’s broken brushes under Sustained, Jo Jones’s hi-hat under Plinks, Jimmy Cobb in two then four under Ramp, Art Blakey locked to the riff under Riffs, Denzil Best’s light brushes under Strum, and Elvin Jones’s triplets under Quartal. They fill into a section on the snare and toms and crash on its 1, and the kit gains a snare, toms and a crash.#675
- At Intermediate, the Rhythm list under Guide Tones offers just the subdivisions (Quarters, 8ths, Triplets, 16ths) and the cards, with no accents: the walk makes the line, and the accents are yours. A rhythm with accents in force becomes its plain subdivision.#674
- The click’s ⋯ tab is now what plays: Metronome, the click alone; Comping, the band, the chart’s groove with piano, bass and drums all in and the click only counting in. The Piano, Bass, groove and Drums switches are gone: leave a part out with its mute in the Mix, or a duo.#672
- The Swing groove’s bass hears the piano: it hits some of the piano’s pushes with it, fills about half the bars the piano leaves out, and walks plain under a busy piano.#670
- The Swing groove’s bass now plays the comping style’s feel, after a bassist on such a record, in place of the same walk under every style: a walk that breathes (a rake, a ghost note, a pickup now and then) under Off-beats and Shells, a light four under Plinks, a two-feel under Strum, two then four under Ramp, a broken line under Sustained, the riff under Riffs, and the pedal under Quartal.#667
- Guide Tones under Play in rhythm now walk: each chord’s guide tone lands on its first attack, and the rhythm’s other attacks walk the chord’s scale, out and back and then by step into the next chord’s guide tone, instead of resting.#666
- For screen readers and voice control, a chord’s button on the Changes is named by its symbol as drawn, then the chord in words (“D–7, D minor 7th. Edit, A bar 3”); the alternate changes, the pentatonic and triad pair labels, and a scale page’s Plays over links say what is drawn first too, so the name you see is the name you can say.#663
- At Intermediate, choosing a rhythm under Guide Tones (or Guide Tones under a rhythm) turns Play in rhythm on, so the rhythm changes the line instead of leaving its notes held; turn it off to hold them again.#657
- A comping style now changes only how the band sounds: choose it under the click’s ⋯, Comping, beside the Swing groove, with its Space. It sets the piano’s voicings and rhythm; the Changes keeps your own Line and rhythm, and the Rhythm list no longer has a Comping group.#661
- The Everything interface is hidden for now, while the lines and rhythms of Intermediate are worked on: ⋯ offers Essentials and Intermediate, and a browser that chose Everything opens at Intermediate (its choice is kept for when Everything returns).#653
- 7th Chords Voice-led now turns round before it runs out of the range, going down as well as up, so the line rises and falls by step instead of leaping back an octave every few bars.#654
- Guide Tones under Play in rhythm strike a chord held for bars once a bar, so a one-chord vamp (Africa, So What) keeps sounding instead of one note and then a section of rests.#651
- Four more comping styles in the Rhythm’s Comping group: Ramp (after Wynton Kelly), denser as the form goes on; Riffs (after Horace Silver), one low figure kept for eight bars; Strum (after Erroll Garner), four chords a bar on the beat; and Quartal (after McCoy Tyner), stacked 4ths over a pedal in the bass, with a Line running in 8ths and the strikes accented.#649
- The click’s ⋯ settings are in two tabs: Metronome (the count-in, Click on, the hat, the Swing dial, the sound, Ramp and All keys) and Comping (Piano, Bass, the groove and Drums, Hear rhythm, the Mix). It opens on the tab you used last.#652
- The Changes’ staves sit closer: a line with no chord change keeps no room for chord names or labels, and on a wide screen a chord’s numeral, scale and pentatonic share one row where they fit. Printed sheets keep a row each.#646
- Comping styles: on the Changes, the Rhythm’s Comping group draws a pianist’s way of placing chords, Off-beats (after Red Garland), Shells (after Bud Powell), Sustained (after Bill Evans) or Plinks (after Count Basie), as the strikes the Swing groove’s piano plays on the chart, and the groove plays that style too. Space, in Line options, sets how many bars it leaves out. Under Shells a guide tone line plays in the rhythm by itself, under Sustained a Line anticipates by half a beat, and under Plinks it restates one note a chord.
- Every Line takes every rhythm again. Where a rhythm’s notes come closer than the Line’s own (7th Chords in triplets or 16ths, Cells in sextuplets), the extra notes walk the chord’s scale between the Line’s notes, with a chromatic passing tone or an enclosure where the steps don’t fit, instead of playing the arpeggio or the cell over again.#641
- Chord and scale pages take any of the twelve roots: choose one above the notes, and the notes, the chord symbol and every staff respell from it, and a link keeps it. The staves are written for a pitch (Concert, B♭, E♭, F or Bass) in place of an instrument, starting from yours.#639
- Line options start with an Exercise: pick a Line with its rhythm by name (Guide tones in half notes, Arpeggios in 8ths anticipate ½, Cells in 16ths on the strong beats, …) and the sheet is set; the controls themselves are under More options, and a combination of your own reads as Custom.#631
- Guide Tones’ Restate is now Play in rhythm: each chord’s guide tone sounds once, where the rhythm first plays in the chord, instead of on every note of the rhythm; add an Approach and the chord’s last notes lead into the next guide tone. Nothing repeats now, so Guide Tones take any rhythm again.#630
- Every Line now offers only the rhythms its notes fit, so a line no longer plays the same few notes over and over: 7th Chords take 8ths or slower (not triplets or 16ths in a row), and Cells, Pentatonic, Triad pair and Quartal 16ths or slower (not sextuplets); Guide Tones keep their limit of a beat. A faster rhythm chosen for another Line is Off under that one and comes back with the Line that takes it.#628
24 October 2026
- The library’s Style filter now offers eight families (medium swing, up-tempo swing, ballad, blues, Latin, waltz, even 8ths & funk, other) in place of some fifty spellings, most with a tune or two.#626
- Guide Tones now offer only rhythms whose notes are a beat or more apart (quarters, the cards, and 8ths or 16ths with rests or ties spaced so), so Restate no longer turns a guide tone into a run of one pitch. A faster rhythm chosen for another Line is Off under Guide Tones and comes back with that Line.#608
- Groups and Gears now play one at a time: choosing one sets the other back to One. Feel shows only under a rhythm that lines up with the beat; under a cross-rhythm like 8ths in 3, or a Groups or Gears path, the sheet is in 4.#608
- Help has a Keyboard shortcuts table (the search, undo, the click, and every key for typing a chord), and points to the Scales, Chords and Composers pages and to a tune’s recording.#619
- A new Glossary page, under Help, explains the words the sheets use (guide tone, chord-scale, key area, pin, triad pair, strong beat and more), each linked to where it’s used, the chord words to their chord pages.#607
- The library shows each tune’s style and key in columns of their own, and two filters beside the search, Style and Key, narrow it to one of each: type in either to find a choice quickly.#613
- A rhythm unit’s Variation has a new choice, no accents: every note plays and none is accented, the grouping still shown by the beams.#617
- Hear changes: under the click’s ⋯, Piano plays each chord’s voicings and Bass plays its roots along with the click, from a sampled grand piano and upright bass.#615
- Grooves: on a swing, ballad or bossa chart, the click’s ⋯ offers that style’s groove. Swing has a walking bass and comping piano, Ballad a held piano and a bass in two, Bossa a syncopated piano and a bossa bass. Drums adds the kit (ride and hi-hat, brushes, or cross-stick).#615
- A mixer under the click’s ⋯: a level and a mute for each track (click, line, rhythm, piano, bass, drums), and presets: Band, Piano duo, Bass duo, No piano, No bass.#615
- Practice tools under the click’s ⋯: All keys takes the tune through all twelve keys a chorus at a time (up in 4ths or in half steps), and Ramp raises the tempo by 2, 4 or 8 after each chorus.#615
- A Line can now play a chord tone on every strong beat of a bar (1 and 3 in 4/4): turn on Chord tones on strong beats in Line options. It takes the place of Target beats, whose dots and grayed notes are gone.#612
- The piano, bass and drums are recorded at a higher rate now, and the piano and cymbals in stereo, for a brighter, wider sound; the sound files load again the first time you play.#611
- Hear line and Play now sound in a small room: a touch of reverb, for a warmer piano.#610
- A drop-down menu low in the window, like the click settings’ Click on, now opens upward instead of running off the bottom of the page.#600
- A new Chart format page, under Help, lists every line a chart’s source can hold (the header’s fields, sections, rows, alternates and the @ changes inside a section), with an annotated example and every message the editor gives for a line it can’t read.#595
- Hear line and Play sound a grand piano now, the Salamander Grand (a Yamaha C5), sampled every minor third for a truer tone across the range; the sound files load again the first time you play.#594
- The click has a third sound, Stick: a recorded stick in place of a synthesized tick, kept for offline use. Choose it under the click’s ⋯. Until it loads, or if it can’t, the click plays Wood.#587
- A shuffle’s Swing dial now starts at 72%, a little further than the two thirds other swing styles start at; moving it still sticks.#588
- Hear line and Play sound a recorded piano in place of the synthesized tone: sound files from this site, loaded the first time you play and then kept for offline use. Until they load, or if they can’t, the tone plays as before.#584
- A chord page draws the chord, then every scale it takes with the chord tones lit, all written for your instrument, each marked Default, Basic or Advanced and linked to its scale’s page. How it decides says which scale each level reaches for.#583
23 October 2026
- A control’s options panel at the end of the bar of controls now opens under its button when there’s no room beside it, instead of running off the window’s edge.#580
- A Line poured into a rhythm beams each group with its stems all one way, so a beam no longer runs through its notes, and on a line that mixes busy and sparse bars (sextuplets beside quarter-note triplets) the busy bars get more of the line.#581
- At Intermediate, the Rhythm is a short list of ready-made rhythms (quarters, 8ths, triplets and 16ths with an accent on the beat, 8ths in 3, a run of 8ths, and the cards), with no options to set. Everything keeps every rhythm and its options.#578
- A Changes line whose notes are too many for four bars, split two bars a line, now spreads its bars across the whole line instead of crowding them into half of it.#576
- With the Line off and a Groups or Gears path, the card over the Changes sheet shows every step: a small card for each grouping or pulse the form plays, in order, each named as its mark on the sheet (③, 8ths).#575
- With the Line off, a rhythm no longer turns the Changes sheet into a rhythm part: the sheet stays a lead sheet, four slashes a bar, and the rhythm shows once, on a card over the first line, to play over the changes. Line options shows the same card under the Rhythm as you choose it. With a Line on, the Line still plays in the rhythm.#573
- Hear what you practise. Under the click’s ⋯, Hear line plays the Changes sheet’s Line with the click, at concert pitch, and Hear rhythm taps its rhythm on a rim; both follow the form as written (repeats, endings, D.S. and D.C., to the Coda or Fine), each bar in its own meter, then go round again. The Swing dial sets how far the 8ths swing, from straight to a dotted 8th and a 16th; the chart remembers it.#571
- Play, by each Scales and Arpeggios staff’s label and each pentatonic on a Changes label’s ladder, sounds it at the click’s tempo: a scale up and down (only your Practice notes, with Practice on), an arpeggio as drawn. With the click running, it comes in on the next bar.#571
- A chord page’s link now previews with its own card when shared: the chord on C, its name, formula and notes, and the scales that play over it.#566
- In Focus, the sheet’s scale, numeral and pentatonic labels are plain text: the fitted pages set them too close together to tap reliably. Pick a scale or open a chord’s Why before going into Focus. And Exit focus’s Esc hint is darker, to read on the stand’s background.#565
- Click on, in the click’s settings (after Bergonzi): the click can sound every beat, 2 and 4, 1 and 3, 3 only, 4 only, or the and of 2 and 4, leaving the other beats to you; the lights still follow every beat. It starts from the rhythm’s Feel (in 2: 2 and 4; in 1: 4 only), and the chart remembers it.#558
- Tuplet pulses for the rhythm (Everything interface): Units also come as quarter-note triplets, quarter-note quintuplets, 8th-note quintuplets, 16th quintuplets, sextuplets and septuplets, after Saindon and Bergonzi, on the Changes, Scales and Arpeggios sheets, and Your rhythm… takes them as 4t:, 4q:, 8q:, 16q:, 16t: and 16s:. A tuplet never crosses a barline: a bar that can’t hold a whole number of them plays in plain quarters (plain 8ths for 8th-note quintuplets).#557
- Mixed phrasing and gears on the Changes (Everything interface). In Line options, Groups changes a unit’s grouping as the tune goes, Up (3 4 5 6 7), Down (7 6 5 4 3) or your own list, after Saindon’s mixed phrasing; Gears changes the pulse of a unit or Your rhythm…, Up the gears (quarter-note triplets, 8ths, triplets, 16ths, sextuplets) or down, after Bergonzi. Step moves both on at each section, each change of key area, or every 2, 4 or 8 bars. A circled number (③) and the pulse’s name mark where each step starts, and the path is kept with the chart and goes in a share link.#557
- Feel, in Line options on the Changes (Everything interface), writes the beats in 4, in 2 (half time: half-note slashes, and 8ths beam by the group) or in 1 (a slash the bar long, the downbeat the only target), after Bergonzi and Galper, with or without a rhythm. The rhythm plays the same, and units keep their own beams; only how it’s written changes.#557
- Changes sheets with a triplet rhythm now print a sheet page to a letter page: a page holds one line fewer, as the triplet numbers stand over the beams. And a bar of the rhythm’s notes no longer runs past its barline: 16ths sit a little closer, and a line that still can’t hold its notes splits evenly (two bars and two), while the other lines keep theirs.#555
22 October 2026
- Rhythm for the Scales sheet. The Rhythm control (Intermediate interface) puts a slash rhythm card under each staff, one cycle long. Notes per bar (Intermediate interface; Whole notes, or 1 to 7 a bar, after Bergonzi) rewrites each scale as a run up and back in bars of that many notes, as tuplets where the number doesn’t divide the bar, or in the first notes of the Rhythm.#551
- Rhythm for the Arpeggios sheet. The Rhythm pours each arpeggio into it, and its Grouping is 8ths in N, with accents (after Saindon).#551
- Scale and chord pages drop Spell Scale (their staff is always spelled from the scale’s own root, written for your instrument) and the line of introduction under their title.
- Chord pages: Chords, in the menu bar beside Scales, has a page for every chord quality with its notes and formula, a staff of its default scale for your instrument with the chord tones lit, the scales that play over it (each linked to its page), and the library tunes that use it. A scale’s Plays over chords link to them, and so does About this chord in a chord’s scale menu and in a phone’s chord editor. A scale page’s staff draws larger, across the full width. The header’s quote now shows on wider screens only (1536 px and up), to make room for Chords.#546
- Rhythm for the Changes sheet. In the Line’s options (Intermediate interface), Rhythm draws slashes with stems, beams, rests, ties and accents where the beat slashes were, and with a Line on, the Line plays in the rhythm. Choose a unit (8ths in 5, after Saindon), a run of 8ths from a beat (after Bergonzi), a card, or type your own. The caption says when the rhythm is back on one.#544
- Target beats, in the Changes sheet’s Analysis group, puts a dot over each strong beat of a bar (after Galper). On a Line, a chord tone on a dot is lit and any other note on a dot is gray.#544
- With a rhythm on a Line (Everything interface), Start adds a 1-, 2- or 3-note pick-up into each chord (after Galper), and Timing begins each chord’s notes early or late (after Bergonzi). With Guide Tones, Restate plays each chord’s note on every attack of the rhythm.#544
- Charts can now be in 7/4: write time: 7/4 in the heading, or choose Bar in 7/4 from the bar menu for a single bar.#487
- A click to practise with: Click (the note icon, beside Print) puts a metronome at the foot of a song’s page, at a tempo and feel from the chart’s style. Feel plays Swing (the skip note), Straight (even eighths) or Quarters. Tap sets the tempo, Space starts and stops it, and its settings add a count-in, a hat on 2 and 4, and a wood or beep sound. Its chevron folds it to one row while it plays, and it comes into focus mode, still playing.#497
- Edit alternate changes on the sheet: while editing, a small line above the bars takes each bar’s alternate (+ alt, then type; Tab for the next bar), and with Changes set to Alternate the big chords are the alternate set. A chart with alternates no longer forces its Source open.#490
- The small line of other changes shows a chord held from an earlier bar (in italics), and an alternate typed the same as the chord already held there isn’t kept.#495
- A simpler menu bar: Library, Scales, Composers, and a Help menu with How it works, How it decides, Functions, About and Contact.
- On a phone, the home page’s instrument picker sits under the search box instead of squeezing it.
- A scale’s page puts Practice it right after its notes, without the explanations under each heading; a song’s page drops its “Chord changes (lead-sheet style)” note; American spellings throughout (practice, color, meter).
21 October 2026
- Rhythm Changes now carries alternate changes: Changes → Alternate, in the toolbar above the sheet, plays them on every sheet, and Other changes prints the other set small above the bars.#476
- Back up your charts: the library’s Backup menu saves My charts, their settings and your preferences to one file (Back up…), and Restore from backup… brings them into this or another browser; where a chart is in both, you choose Keep both or Keep mine.#473
- The Scales sheet’s Practice panel folds its explanation under How it works, so the music starts higher on the page.#464
- The Cells line now plays phrases. Phrase (on by default) picks each cell to lead into the next chord, and over a long dominant it borrows the tritone sub and the minor-3rd dominant (D♭7 and B♭7 over G7). Order plays the cells As written, Reversed, Rotated or Pairs swapped, and a new Chromatic group adds 1 ♮7 7 6, ♭9 1 3 5, II–V chromatic and more.#461
- iReal Pro import plays out a repeat over several sections: A Foggy Day comes in as A B A C, its second A a copy of the first, where it used to be written out once with a report.#456
20 October 2026
- The Version menu moves onto the row of sheet controls, so on a phone the music starts higher (Controls is its icon there). It also lists your saved charts titled by a tune’s other name, Les Feuilles mortes, or as a copy, “Autumn Leaves (copy)”.#453
- A shared link to a tune’s other version, Summertime (Jazz Mind Accelerator), now opens that version, matching its preview card’s title and image.#452
- The Version menu reads its version aloud with its name, “Version, Ballad”, to a screen reader, and once you have a chart of the tune its library versions sit under Library, beside Mine.#451
- Recently opened names a tune’s other versions by their label, “Summertime (Jazz Mind Accelerator)”, so two versions no longer read alike.#450
19 October 2026
- Triad pairs from the tritone sub: a dominant chord’s pick list ends with pairs from its tritone substitute’s scale, B/D♭ over G7 (from D♭7), after Walt Weiskopf. On the Changes, Scales and Arpeggios sheets.#449
- The Scales, Arpeggios and Patterns sheets start every line with the clef and key signature, so a line read on its own is in its key. A Patterns run that continues onto a second staff starts that staff bare.#448
- A new scale, Augmented (1 ♯2 3 5 ♯5 7: two augmented triads a minor third apart): the Advanced level’s scale over maj7♯5 and augmented chords, and an option over maj7. Its triad pair is those two triads (C+/D♯+), after Walt Weiskopf.#447
- 54 blues from iReal Pro’s Blues 50: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Willie Dixon and more, each read as a blues (the key’s Blues scale at Basic).#445
- Triad pair line: a Shape in Line options, after Walt Weiskopf: Climb (both triads in root position, then 1st and 2nd inversion, rising: F A C, G B D, A C F, …) and Arpeggios 1 3 5 8. Nearest is the line as it was.#444
- Line: under Superimpose: Quartal the 7th Chords slot plays Quartal, each chord’s stack of fourths whole, then its next stacks, up, down or both. Quartal options’ Notes gains Auto: four notes a stack where your range has room, else three.#443
18 October 2026
- Superimpose: Quartal names each chord’s stack of fourths under it on the Changes sheet (D G C F over Dm7); click one to pick another. Quartal options set three or four notes and perfect fourths only.#442
- Practice: a Quartal preset lights a stack of fourths from each scale (D G C F over Dm7, F B E A over G7), Built on a degree you choose, of three or four notes, perfect fourths only if you like.#441
- Hexatonic: the diminished scales gain the pairs a tritone apart (C/F♯ over C7♭9, now its Auto pair), and the whole-tone scale its two augmented triads (C+/D+), after Walt Weiskopf.#440
- Hexatonic: Ranked against Key gives every chord in a key area the same triad pair, its IV and V triads (F/G across Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 in C), after Walt Weiskopf. On the Changes under Hexatonic options, and in the Scales sheet’s Hexatonic preset.#439
- Triad pairs on the Arpeggios sheet: each chord’s triad pair as six triads through their inversions, arpeggiated or as block chords. Click the pair under the chord to pick another.#438
- The Triad pair line’s Up & down now alternates chord by chord; with four notes a chord it only went up.#434
- Blues read as blues: Mixolydian on the I, IV and V (Dorian on a minor blues’ i and iv), the key’s Blues scale at Basic, and Read as in the heading to say a chart is a blues whatever its form.#437
- Transpose… moves beside Edit: both rewrite the chart. Print is lighter, its label in the accent color.#431
- The controls above the sheet take two rows instead of four: the Instrument button shows your instrument and range and opens them in a panel, and a line’s details open from Line options beside it.#429
- Patterns: Stacked fourths, two fourths stacked from each scale note.#435
- 18 charts from the Jazz Mind Accelerator backing tracks: versions of 15 library tunes, and Fly Me to the Moon, Mack the Knife and A Child Is Born.#421
- Versions: a tune with more than one chart has a Version menu above its sheet, your own charts of it included.#419
- The Instrument picker in two steps: the pitch (Concert, B♭, E♭, F, Bass), then your instrument.#420
- Links from where a choice shows (a chord’s why note, Practice, chord picks, Transpose) to How it decides.#412
- Release notes: this page.
- How it decides: every choice the app makes for you, the rule behind it, and an example.#408
- Approaches now lead the 7th Chords and Cells lines into each chord, not only the guide tones.#393
- A song’s description names its notable recording.#392
- A video that won’t play embedded shows a Listen on YouTube link instead.#391
- The Superimpose control keeps its place when you change its options.#388
17 October 2026
- The Patterns sheet: a scale sequence run over each scale line, from a library of patterns or your own.#371
- Melodic cells on the Changes sheet, after Randy Vincent’s Building Solo Lines From Cells.#374
- Approach notes and enclosures leading into each guide tone.#382
- Set your own range for each instrument; every line keeps to it.#362
- Lines turn back before the edge of your range instead of drifting to it.#386
- Notable recordings on song pages, for the first 23 tunes.#361
- Scale pages and composer pages.#346
- More chord symbols read: 13sus, m13, add9, m7add11, aug, (#11), and tensions in any order.#345
- Meter changes partway through a chart, and 5/4 and 6/4.#342
- The Arpeggios sheet’s 7th Chord runs span two octaves.#343
- Piano is the default instrument.#338
- Piano’s lines use F3–E6.#339
- N.C. is a rest.#337
- Works offline once you’ve opened it.#341
16 October 2026
15 October 2026
- Chord picks: choose one chord’s pentatonic or triad pair, on either sheet.#309
- Interface levels: Essentials, Intermediate and Everything.#290
- Hexatonic triad pairs: a Practice preset on the Scales sheet, and a Superimpose on the Changes.#295
- Pentatonics are built on a degree of each chord.#304
- Undo and redo cover your note choices too.#316
- The home page: Tune of the day, and what the site does.#250
- Bebop and Spanish Phrygian scales spelled without C♭, F♭, E♯ or double accidentals.#288
14 October 2026
- Pentatonics on the Changes sheet: each key area’s ladder from inside to outside, paths that step by section, key area or bars, and a pentatonic per chord.#263
- A Pentatonic practice preset on the Scales sheet.#271
- Pentatonic picks follow their chords when you add or remove bars.#283
- Diminished scales spelled without double accidentals.#280
13 October 2026
- The home page has a large tune search; the library moves to its own page.#247
12 October 2026
- Edit a chart on the sheet itself: chords, numerals, scales, bars and sections, where they print.#137
- The Arpeggios sheet.#204
- A 7th Chords arpeggio line on the Changes sheet.#186
- The Scales sheet has one line per scale.#197
- Each tune has its own address, /song/<name>, and its own page in search results.#175
- A new look: a control rail above the sheet, the sheet as pages in Focus, and the music first on phones.#213
- Spell Scale starts from the chart’s key by default.#172
- A written function that doesn’t fit its chord is marked.#190
- Chord names on neighboring beats no longer overlap.#150