What the words mean

Short definitions, linked to places on the site where you can hear them. For how the site itself works, see the guide.

The key

Key: The home base of a song — the note and chord everything pulls back to. Pick one in the builder and every tile it offers will belong.
Major / minor: The two flavors of key. Major leans bright, minor leans dark; the difference is one note — the third — a half step apart.
Diatonic: “In the key” — built only from the key's seven notes. The builder's chord tiles are the key's diatonic chords.
Roman numerals (I, ii, V7): Chords named by their position in the key instead of by letter: in C major, C is I, Dm is ii, G is V. Uppercase means major, lowercase minor, ° diminished, and a 7 means the seventh is added. This is why it all matters: I–V–vi–IV names the shape of a song, so the same numerals work in every key — it's how players talk to each other, and it's what makes transposing one button instead of relearning every chord.
Function (tonic · subdominant · dominant): What a chord does: tonic (I) is home, subdominant (IV) moves away, dominant (V) pulls hard back home. Most progressions are a trip through those three jobs.

Root · third · fifth · seventh: The notes stacked to make a chord. The root names it, the third makes it major or minor, the fifth thickens it, and a seventh adds color — hear each one explained on any chord page, like G7.
Voicing: One particular way to grab a chord on the neck. Same notes, different order and position — C major has an open shape, barre shapes, and small triads, and they all count.
Barre chord: One finger laid flat across several strings, acting as a movable nut. Learn one barre shape and you can slide it to any root.
Capo: A clamp that moves the nut up the neck so open shapes sound in higher keys. The builder suggests one when it would make your progression easier to play.

Scale: The pool of notes a melody or solo draws from, named by its root and pattern. Every scale page shows the whole pool on the fretboard.
Pentatonic: A five-note scale with the clash-prone notes removed — the reason it's everyone's first solo scale. Start with A minor pentatonic.
Blues scale & the blue note: Minor pentatonic plus one extra note — the flat five — that rubs against the key on purpose. E blues over an E7 shuffle is the sound.
Relative major / minor: Two keys that share every note but call a different one home — C major and A minor. Same fingerings, different feeling.
Position (box): A four-to-five-fret window where a scale sits under your hand. The numbered pills on every scale page isolate one box at a time.

Bar & BPM: A bar is four beats here; BPM is beats per minute — the tempo slider. Each tile in the builder is one bar.
Strum notation (D U B X): How the builder writes patterns: D downstrum, U upstrum, B a single bass note, X a muted chuck. D-DU-UDU is the campfire classic; B-D-B-D is country boom-chick.
Shuffle (swing): Eighth notes played long-short instead of even. It's the difference between a march and a blues — the Shuffle pattern does it for you.