A Solution to Detect Chords / Notes Via MIDI (ChordieApp Review and Tutorial)

Hello, this is Marc My Keys to Music.
Thanks for joining me on this video.
If you are looking for an application
that detects the MIDI notes that you’re
playing and enables you to detect the
chord or to decipher the notes you’re
playing, or to actually show them on
the staff, this app does all of that.
And it even runs on Mac and
Windows, which is a nice bonus.
It detects anything on the MIDI chain,
whether it be a keyboard like a Nord
Stage 3 or a keyboard controller,
like what I have here, the
Akai Professional, LPK 25.
And it’ll work with just about
anything that can play MIDI.
Even if you had a MIDI saxophone,
for example, or a breath controller,
it would be able to detect the notes.
And it’s particularly helpful
if you’re learning music,
or if you want to understand
what chord you’re playing.
Or if you’re an instructor,
and you’re trying to give a
visual cue and some help to a
student who you are trying to explain
how chords work or how intervals work or
what it is you’re playing. If
you’re playing a complicated piece,
they’ll be able to see it as it unfolds
as you

play. It’s a great guide.
It’s a great help. So the name of the
application is called “ChordieApp”.
And when you first load it,
it actually gives you the guitar fretboard
as well as the piano roll here and
the grand staff.
So what I normally do when I first
come in here is I go to the fretboard
preferences here and just disable that
fretboard because I’m not a guitar
player. And I just wanna see
things related to the keyboard.
So I’ll play my Akai keyboard controller.
And what you’re hearing is GarageBand.
So I’m doing a very simple, MIDI
connection from the Akai to GarageBand.
And as I play a note on the controller,
the computer is on and detecting the MIDI.
And this app is sort of listening
on that MIDI channel, if you will.
So if I play two notes,
it’ll start constructing what it
knows to be the chord for that
along with showing it on the staff.
So there’s a few things happening
here that you need to be aware of.
There’s so many visual cues. It’s crazy.
You have the, key on the keyboard.
You have the note, the actual
letter note above the keyboard,
because you might not be a person who
recognizes the keys and to be able to say,
oh, that’s a C and that’s an E it shows
you right there. There’s the staff.
And then to the left of that,
you have the letter notes again,
because a lot of people
unable to read music.
So they won’t know what note that
is. And even if you do read music,
if you’re way out in the stratosphere,
it might be nice to know, oh yeah,
that’s a C that’s an A,
that’s an F and so forth.
I know I read music in the past,
but I’m not as good as let’s say a
concert pianist when it comes to reading
music. It also detects the sustain pedal.
So let me switch over
to my Nord Stage 3 here,
and I’ll show you what that’s
all about. I have a basic setup.
I have a sustain pedal
connected to the Nord Stage 3.
And when I push on the sustain pedal,
you should see it turned green
over there in the corner. Now,
when I push notes without the
sustain, it looks like this.
And then when I push the sustain
pedal, you’ll see it turn light blue,
And I can even change the color of
that to be whatever color I want On,
off on off. So that’s a nice feature.
Let’s go through some of those features.
Now that we mention it, I can
reset my settings to default,
which will bring it out just like this.
I can also determine if I wanna
show alternate chord names.
Let me show you what that is.
That’s a neat feature here.
Let me play an F diminished 7,
but it’s also known as A flat diminished
with F in the bass or F in the lower
part. So that’s an alternate.
If I make that even more complicated by
adding and continuing that same pattern,
It then shows me all the different
alternate defenitions of that chord.
So that’s pretty advanced feature. I’d
say, all right, now, let’s keep going.
I can choose to show the note
names or not. At that point,
the letters go away, which might be a
nice challenge for a student. If you say,
okay, what key by playing there?
All they see is the keyboard.
All they see is the grand staff. They
don’t have the fact that it’s an E flat.
So that’s a neat option there. All right,
I can either choose to display
that sustain note option or not.
You saw that a second ago. I can set
the note color or the sustain color,
which I told you about.
It’s just a simple thing that allows you
to bring up a color palette and change
the color of those options.
Then I can reset the window to a single
default position, which it is now,
but right below that I can switch to
separate windows. Giving me my components,
separate where let’s say I was
on a Zoom call doing a lesson,
or let’s say I was rechording a video.
You can put these things exactly where
you want them and organize it however you
think would be best for you.
And watch if I play it quickly,
It’s light speed in terms of detection.
And it’s following my
every note to a, to a “T”.
I can minimize these windows and have
them disappear so that maybe all I want is
the piano roll, for example. All right,
let me switch to a single window
and have everything come back.
Then I can change the key. So this
whole time we’ve been in the key of C.
So if I’m holding a D, F sharp, A,
the F is sharp and it
indicated in the notation.
But if I play in the key of D,
now that same D, F sharp, A
There’s nothing noted in the,
in the actual notation.
But if I play a C chord in the key
of D the C will have to be natural,
what we’ll need to include a
natural indicator there on the C,
because I’m in the key of D
that’ll make sense if you know,
any kind of music theory, but
it’s a nice option to have.
If you want to orient your student
around a particular key. Now,
the MIDI inputs are right now set to all.
That’s why it’s detecting both
the Stage 3 and the controller,
but I can choose to only
detect one or the other.
So if I wanted to detect only the
Nord Stage 3, as I play my controller,
even though you hear it, you don’t
see anything show up on the screen,
but if I play the Stage 3,
you see the notes there.
You might be hearing the roads in the
background because the Nord keyboard is
pumping MIDI to the GarageBand so
you still hear it in the background,
but it has nothing to do with what’s
detected here in the screen. All right,
then there’s the fretboard options. And
let’s buzz through those very quickly.
This is great if you’re also playing
guitar and you want to if you have some
kind of, of MIDI guitar set up, I would
imagine it would show up here. Actually,
let me turn the MIDI input back
to all. And then as I play a key,
let’s say the C key.
It shows me on the fretboard where
that is displayed or where it could
be played. And there’s this
option here at the bottom show,
all playable positions for a single note.
If I deselect that and
I push the same C key,
it just shows me the
one C on the B string.
If I play an E shows me that that’s
an open string on the E string
open, play it open. But if I have
this show, all playable positions,
now it’ll show me yeah,
I can play it open here.
I can play it on the fret here
and then fret here on this string.
Different strings, different
threats. It’s kind of a neat option,
especially if you’re learning
guitar. I’ve always wondered…
I don’t play guitar. And, but I’ve
always wondered how it all works.
Okay. So enable choosing
preferred fretboard from results.
There’s an option here where you can
mark a particular preferred fretboard.
If you’re working with the,
and you have a certain style,
you can actually indicate that.
Then you can enable changing
number of strings and frets.
If you enable that you can
actually increase the string count
or the fret count like that. All right?
So there’s some options you can play with,
but that’s essentially the whole
app and it’s simple, it’s powerful,
it’s quick.
It does require the internet when it
loads in order for you to gain access to
all that chord magic. That’s
pulled from the internet.
The author of this constantly updates,
those chord charts and those
chord matrices, if you will.
And that’s why it needs the internet to
load, but it’s it’s been a handy tool.
I’ve used it on several videos.
Now, if you wanna find out more,
you can go to the website and if you’d
use the link below my video here,
the description has a link,
which is an affiliate link.
I wasn’t asked to do a video
for this or anything like that.
I’m doing it totally on a volunteer
basis, but there is an affiliate link.
So if you use that link,
I’ll get a little bit of a percentage
on anything that you choose to buy.
But this is this is the website
and you can read all about it.
It’s very good.
And what I like about this particular
author is he’s a software wizard if you
will. This is not the only thing he
does. He does all kinds of things,
especially if you are a programmer
wanting to learn how to create music
software, he’s got courses for you on
that. So you can check that out as well.
But what I particularly like
about this is that on the Mac,
he’s very up to date with with it
being compatible with the M1 chip.
All right, thanks for joining me on this
video and checking out the CordieApp.
The app that detects your chords
through MIDI, it detects notes.
It puts ’em on the staff.
It puts ’em on the piano roll and it
labels them and lists them in their
English version.
Thanks for joining me on this video
and we’ll catch you the next one.

%d bloggers like this: