Membership · in Adam's Academy

Fretboard Diagrams

Build any chord voicing or fretboard map Adam teaches, and lay them out into practice sheets you can print, share and hand to a student.

Try it in the Academy → How to use it

How to use it

1. 1

   Start a chord

   Press Chord Diagram. Pick the root and the quality — from triads to sevenths, sixths, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths and the altered chords. Voicing Mode chooses how it is played: Open, Barre (the five CAGED shapes), Triad Inv. (inversions across the string sets) or Custom, where you drag the dots yourself. Press Chord or Arpeggio to hear it.

   

2. 2

   Shape the picture

   Dots can be round, square or diamond, filled or hollow. Colour them by the theme, by role (root, third, fifth, seventh), by degree or by finger. Tick Fingering numbers and a sensible left hand appears under the box — yours to change per string. Labels read as intervals or note names, in the simple, extensions or minor vocabulary.

   

3. 3

   Tuning, left-handed, capo

   Pick a tuning — the tuner's presets, or six note names typed in — and the string names and every note follow. Left-handed flips the strings. Set a capo and it is drawn where it sits, with the shape above it and the fret markers reading the real fret numbers, so a D shape at capo 2 reads as the E it sounds.

4. 4

   A whole batch at once

   Batch CAGED draws all five shapes of the chord side by side; in Triad Inv. mode, Batch Inversions draws all twelve. Add all to page lays them out on a grid across the page; Download as ZIP packs them as PNGs with a manifest listing every file.

   

5. 5

   Map a scale on the neck

   Press Fretboard Diagram. Pick the key and the scale, then press the Positions chips to fill the neck with the scale in that position — no clicking notes one at a time. Click any fret to add a dot and hear it; click it again to rename it; once more to remove it. Bold a fret line to divide the neck into triads. Set the window with Start Fret and Visible Frets.

   

6. 6

   Make it yours

   String marks: press the spot beside a string name to mark it open or muted. Notes: Add a note and drag it anywhere in the drawing — it prints, exports and shares. Fret numbers: every fret, inlays only or the first; figures or Roman numerals; above or below. The chord layer drops a chord's tones onto the neck over the scale. And the neck can stand up: Vertical draws it nut-at-the-top.

   

7. 7

   Build the handout

   New Project starts a page. Send any chord or neck to it, or Add to PDF. Drag items where you want them; the arrow keys nudge a selected item a millimetre, Shift makes it five, Ctrl+D duplicates, Delete removes. Add headings, body text and dividers. Choose A4 or US Letter. Mark a project as a template and new handouts start from a copy of it. It saves itself as you work.

   

8. 8

   Export and share

   PNG at 2×, 3×, 4× or 6×, transparent PNG for slides and video, SVG for print, JPG, PDF of the whole handout, or a ZIP of every picture on the page with a manifest.csv naming each one. Share this diagram makes a link anyone can open in a browser with no account; a partner code rides along with it.

Adam's tips

• Ctrl+Z takes back anything; a slider drag undoes in one press. Ctrl+S saves. Press ? for the whole list of keys.
• New diagrams save themselves as drafts after the first edit, so a closed tab loses nothing. Press Save to name one properly.
• For a black-and-white handout, switch the dots to hollow squares for one voice and filled circles for another. It reads on paper.
• Make one handout you like, mark it as a template, and start every lesson sheet from it — the header, the footer and your layout come along.
• Use Extensions in Dot Labels when a chord chart calls a note a ♭9 or ♯11 — the neck says what the note is doing, not only what it is.

Questions people ask

Is it members only?

Yes. Everyone can look and take the tour; the editor and the exports come with the Academy membership.

Does it work on a phone?

It is built for a laptop or a tablet — a page builder wants the room. Diagrams you share open fine on any phone.

Can I use it in a tuning other than standard?

Any tuning: the presets or six names you type. The open-chord table and the CAGED shapes are standard-tuning facts, so in another tuning the editor shows a computed voicing and says so; triads and the neck work in any tuning.

Where do my diagrams live?

In your Academy library, on every device you sign in on. The library shows projects, templates, chords and necks separately.

What is in the ZIP?

Every picture on the page as PNG or JPG, in chords and fretboards folders, plus manifest.csv: file, page, title, timecode, position on the page, and the chord's root, quality and voicing.