Magic Chords
Play a chord. See its real name. A free chord identifier for any key.
From a MIDI keyboard, your computer keyboard or a tap on the screen, Magic Chords is a free chord identifier that writes the chord the way your teacher would, and shows every chord in any major or minor key.
Runs in your browser. Nothing to install, no card.
A chord finder for any key, in one tap
Pick a key on the circle of fifths. Its seven chords fan out with their Roman numerals, colored by harmonic function, exactly as in the app. Then switch on borrowed chords and secondary dominants to see what else fits.
CDEFGAB
Every chord, spelling and color on this page comes from the app's own music engine.
Five ways to read the same chord
Each view switches on and off in the app. Guitarists hide the staff; pianists hide the fretboard.
Name and function
The chord symbol and its Roman numeral in the key, in the color of its harmonic function. You know what you played and where it wants to go.
Piano
The keys of the voicing you played, lit on the keyboard.
Staff
The same notes on the grand staff, spelled the way the key asks for.
Fretboard
A playable guitar shape with the interval of every note: root, third, fifth, seventh.
Piano roll
The last few bars of what you played, so you can see the voice leading.
The right name, not the nearest guess
A chord identifier that just matches letters gets it wrong where it matters most: inversions and spelling in the key.
Inversions
The same three notes with E in the bass. It is the chord with its third in the bass, and the symbol says so.
Spelling in the key
In F minor, these black keys are written as flats. It is chord iv of the key, and the staff spells it the same way.
No MIDI keyboard? No problem.
Your computer keyboard becomes a piano: the home row (A S D F G H J K L) plays the white keys, the row above (W E T Y U O P) the black ones. On a phone or tablet, just tap the screen.
Z and X shift the octave.
Who it's for
Harmony students
See the name, the numeral and the key of whatever you play, the way it's taught in class.
Teachers
Show the same chord on piano, staff and fretboard at once, without building a slide.
Songwriters and producers
Find what fits the key and what you can borrow, without leaving your instrument.
Guitarists
Play a shape, read its name, see it on the staff. The bridge between fretboard and keyboard.
Pianists and keyboard players
Plug in your controller, play, and keep the key's chords beside you while you improvise.
What Magic Chords isn't
It does one thing: tell you, correctly spelled, which chord you're playing and where it lives in the key.
- Not a DAW: no tracks, no mixer, no plugins.
- Not audio detection: input is MIDI, computer keyboard, mouse or touch.
- Not a sequencer: it's about the chord you're playing now.
- Not an editor: the piano roll is read-only.
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes. Magic Chords in the browser is free: no card and no trial that runs out.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It opens right in your browser, on a computer or a tablet.
Does it work on iPad and Safari?
Yes, with your computer keyboard and with touch. What Safari and the iPad (in any browser) lack is Web MIDI, so to connect a MIDI keyboard use Chrome, Edge or Opera on a computer.
Do I need an account?
Yes, a free account, after a few minutes of use.
Play your first chord now.
Magic Chords runs in your browser, free.
Runs in your browser. Nothing to install, no card.