Preparation

One of the first things I’m finding with this whole process, is that I’m having to spend more and more time documenting the songs. For the older stuff (Daytime and Slow Down for example) I’m going to have to write down the chords and the lyrics, something I just memorised over the years and didn’t ever contemplate having to communicate to other musicians…

Now I have a basic rudimentary knowledge of chord shapes and over time I have learned by ear what seems to go together well and what suits my voice. Now I’m finding that the chords I use are not typical standard shapes, I use diminished and suspended chords, I guess to vary the sounds that I play, but at the moment I haven’t the foggiest idea what chords they are…

There are a multitude of websites out there that have chord finding apps, that’s if you have been given the identity of a chord to begin with; but where do you go if you already know what the fingering is for the chord and you just want someone to tell you what it is?

A few months ago I found the website Jamplay.com, and they have what was, to me, the best chord finding app on the web. All you have to do is click upon a fretboard upon each string in the exact shape of your chord, and it then offers you the chord name (or a number of alternatives, as I’m finding that there’s not just one way of identifying a weird chord!)

Anyway, just to complicate the issue, jamplay.com’s site went down about a week ago, following the announcement of some site updates, which they said were just going to take a couple of hours. It seems they’re having bigger problems with the updates than planned. So – its left me kinda high and dry for the moment, just at the point when I need to be able to write a lot of my stuff down. I could really do with a replacement tool with the same way of finding chords quickly. I’ve yet to find a better one, whether it’s for Mac, or iPad… Suggestions anyone?