Learn

Quick Start Guide

Master UndeadChords in 5 minutes!

What you'll learn

1 The Home Page

When you launch UndeadChords, the Home page greets you with a 2×3 grid of quick-access cards, plus a tab bar at the bottom for Books, Style Search, Tuner and Settings:

Home page with 6 feature cards
The Home dashboard — every feature one tap away.
💡 Tip: The Home page is your dashboard. Use the quick-access cards to navigate faster instead of switching tabs.

2 Interactive Tutorial

New to UndeadChords? The app includes a built-in 6-page illustrated tutorial presented as a swipeable carousel. It walks you through the key features step by step:

  1. How to create and edit songs with chord notation
  2. How to use Style Search to find harmony grids
  3. How to read chord diagrams and explore fingerings
  4. How to use the tuner and reference tones
  5. How to practice with rhythm and picking patterns
  6. How to organize your songs in Books
💡 Tip: You can access the tutorial at any time from the Home page. Swipe left and right to navigate between pages, or tap the dots at the bottom to jump to a specific page.

3 Create Your First Song

Open the editor

  1. Launch the app (wait 2s for the splash screen)
  2. You're automatically in the Songs tab
  3. Tap the + button in the top right

Fill in the details

Add content with chords

Use brackets around chord names:

[Em7]Today is [G]gonna be the day
That they're [Dsus4]gonna throw it back to [A7sus4]you
💡 Tip: Use the chord toolbar at the top to quickly insert common chords (C, D, E, F, G, A, Am, Em, Dm) without typing brackets.

Save

Tap Save in the top right. Your song now appears in the list!

4 Organize Songs in Books

As your song library grows, Books help you keep things organized. Books are like notebooks or binders where you group songs by theme, setlist, or practice session.

Create a book

  1. In the Songs tab, tap the book icon in the toolbar
  2. Tap + to create a new book
  3. Give it a name (e.g., "Campfire Songs", "Jazz Standards")

Add songs to a book

💡 Tip: Each book gets a unique grimoire-style cover. Books are perfect for building setlists for gigs or organizing your practice repertoire.

5 View Chord Diagrams

With a song open:

  1. Tap any chord displayed in the lyrics (e.g., Em7)
  2. A modal opens showing:
    • The chord diagram with finger positions (cyan dots)
    • Open strings (O) and muted strings (X)
  3. Switch between Guitar/Ukulele with the selector
  4. Tap Listen to hear the chord
  5. Scroll through positions if multiple fingerings exist
💡 Reading the diagram:
• Vertical lines = strings (low E on left, high E on right)
• Horizontal lines = frets
• Cyan dots = where to place your fingers

6 Transpose a Song

  1. Open a song
  2. Tap the controls icon (sliders) in the toolbar
  3. Use the + / − buttons to shift all chords by semitones

Example: Press + twice → Em7 becomes F#m7

💡 When to transpose:
• Song too high → transpose down (−)
• Song too low → transpose up (+)
• Simplify difficult chords → find an easier key

7 Tune Your Guitar

  1. Go to the Tuner tab (tuning fork icon)
  2. See all 6 strings displayed
  3. Tap the tuning selector to choose Standard, Drop D, Open G, etc.
  4. Tap a string to hear its reference tone
  5. Tune your guitar string to match the sound
  6. Repeat for all 6 strings
Tuner with Standard EADGBE tuning
Standard EADGBE — tap a string to hear it.
💡 Tuning fork: Tap the tuning fork icon at the top to hear A 440Hz — the universal reference pitch.

8 Use Style Search

  1. In the Songs tab, tap the globe icon 🌐
  2. Enter an artist name
  3. Browse the results — these are estimated chord progressions
  4. Tap a result to preview the harmony grid
  5. Tap Save to add it to your songs

Compact / Extended view

When viewing a harmony grid in the song sheet, you can toggle between two display modes:

Use the toggle button in the song sheet toolbar to switch between modes.

Style Search screen
Style Search — free tier has 3 downloads per day.
💡 Note: Style Search displays a short lyrics preview (first verse) for song identification; the rest of the text is replaced by placeholder characters (░) to respect copyright. Use Compact mode for a cleaner chord-only view.

9 Build Progressions with the Composer NEW v7

The Composer is the tool to build chord sequences, hear them played with realistic guitar samples and save them to your songbook. Open it from the Home grid.

Pick a chord

  1. Choose a root note (C, C#, D, … B) from the top row
  2. Choose a quality (M, m, 7, m7, Maj7, sus4, sus2, add9, 6, 9, dim, aug, 5)
  3. Hit Listen to hear it, or Add to drop it in your sequence

Use the three suggestion modes

Below the sequence, a segmented picker lets you pick the suggestion style:

Composer with Diatonic suggestions in C
Diatonic mode — the 6 in-key chords for the current key.
Composer in By style mode with Jazz selected
By style — Jazz: 7th chords + ii-V-I & I-vi-ii-V progressions.
💡 Tip: In By style mode, tap a progression (ii-V-I, I-V-vi-IV, La Pompe, etc.) and the whole sequence is appended in one tap. Use Save to songbook to keep your composition.

10 Browse Chords by Style NEW v7

Open Chord Dictionary from the Home grid. The top segment switches between two browsing modes:

Chord Dictionary in All chords mode
All chords — Guitar/Ukulele, with multiple fingerings.
Chord Dictionary in By style mode, Jazz
By style — Jazz: priority chords & progressions.

11 Explore Scales & Modes

Open Scales & modes from the Home grid to view any scale on the guitar fretboard.

  1. Pick a root (C through B)
  2. Pick a category: Major, Minor, Pentatonic, Blues, Modes, Exotic
  3. Pick a scale variant within the category
  4. Adjust the fret range, system (Traditional / CAGED / 3NPS), tempo
  5. Hit Play to hear the scale
Scales view with A pentatonic major
A pentatonic major — 5 notes ideal for country/folk.

🎉 You're Ready!

You now know how to:

🎸 Rock on, even after midnight! 🔥