Steve Wilson Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Following Maki's F#m? thread I thought I'd share this idea. Might be most useful for english and duet players, not sure about anglo players, you may like to comment. There's all manner of sites on the internet these days on building chords but this is something I knocked up many years ago to help with chords and transposing. I still use it, it's so simple and I don't have to turn the computer on. It consists of three cardboard disks of deminishing size. The outer two have the chromatic scale around their edge. The inner one has the ionian scale(doe,ray,me....) in red numbers and also the intervals for a major and a minor chord in green shading. In the middle I've listed the intervals for various chords and sometime later I extended this list and pasted it on the back. So to determine the notes of a chord one simply rotates the inner disk so that the first or tonic number is adjacent to the tonic note of the chord desired then count up the tones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maki Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Dude, that is brilliant! It's just the way I like to learn. For some reason seeing the whole and complete picture helps me understand where the details fit into place. Thank you so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Taylor Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 I am guessing that the outer disk is only needed for transposing and not for chord building? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Wilson Posted October 16, 2014 Author Share Posted October 16, 2014 I am guessing that the outer disk is only needed for transposing and not for chord building? Yep, but you can use it to display the notes of an alternate chord in a different key from the chord you've just built. This is easiest to see if you're just working off the major or minor chord intervals (the green shading, used to be green but it's faded a bit, like me). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brandon Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 This needs to be my next project. Agreed that it's brilliant and simple. How's the battery life on this thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anglo-Irishman Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 Great minds think alike! I made myself a chord wheel like that as a guide when cutting felts for my autoharp, which only requires major, minor, dominant seventh and dim7 chords. The addition of the chart with sus, aug, etc. chords is a good idea. I enhaced my chord wheel to a transposing wheel, and then made a "tonic-solfa-to-absolute-pitch translation disc" to help me decipher my old Scottish Psalm book. Turn "doh" to the given key-note, and read off the note names for re, mi, fa, etc. My discs are a bit simpler, with only 12 segments (one for each semitone of the scale). The enharmonic segments are labelled as "D#/Eb", "F#/Gb" etc. On the autoharp or Crane duet, each pair refers to just one string or button. I just have to remember that, for a given key, they're expressed either all as sharps or all as flats, not mixed! (On the autoharp, all accidentals are expressed as sharps, anyway!) Yes, brandon, battery life is infinite - just as with the concertina and autoharp themselves! Cheers, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maki Posted October 16, 2014 Share Posted October 16, 2014 Someone should start making these for sale. There could be tens of dollars to be made here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Wilson Posted October 16, 2014 Author Share Posted October 16, 2014 Someone should start making these for sale. There could be tens of dollars to be made here! Better yet, someone could start making these to give away! There could be tens of (thousands) of happy musos out there getting on with spreading the joy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoffrey Crabb Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 As everything seems to be computer based now, I don't know if one can obtain good old hands on stuff but here are two examples, from the past, of commercial Rotary Cord finders. Can be useful in transposing as well. Geoffrey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maki Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 (edited) Someone should start making these for sale. There could be tens of dollars to be made here! Better yet, someone could start making these to give away! There could be tens of (thousands) of happy musos out there getting on with spreading the joy. Sorry for being glib.I would actually like to buy one ready made commercial or home made. http://www.amazon.com/The-Chord-Wheel-Ultimate-Musicians/dp/0634021427 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DW6RJC/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_3?pf_rd_p=1944687782&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0634021427&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0ZJDQJ7D3FGRQZVYRZWD Edited October 20, 2014 by maki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 ChordwheeldavidKBD on line - worth a 'spin' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Wilson Posted July 2, 2015 Author Share Posted July 2, 2015 I took my hand drawn chord wheel to the National Folk Festival in Canberra last Easter, handed out a copy at my workshop there. One attendee, a computer wizz, has come up with a computer generated version, an improvement because my hand drawn radials didn't quite line up sometimes. Hope some of you find it useful. Computer generated Chord Wheel v1.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Scannell Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Hope some of you find it useful. I did. Printed it out, cut it, pinned it together. Works a treat. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Wilson Posted July 16, 2015 Author Share Posted July 16, 2015 Hope some of you find it useful. I did. Printed it out, cut it, pinned it together. Works a treat. Thanks! Good oh. I hope you pasted it on some cardboard, could be a bit floppy otherwise with a limited life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewCollins Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Just assembled one ; thanks for posting it. Would you mind if I share the PDF ? ( on f/b that is ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Wilson Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 Would you mind if I share the PDF ? ( on f/b that is ) No worries. Share the knowledge. It's such a simple tool to use and visualise the concept of chords and scales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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