How to use this song chord finder
A section with clear harmony gives the chord detector better evidence than silence, spoken audio, or a drum-only passage.
- Choose a song from your phone or computer, or drop it onto the upload area.
- Leave this page open while the chord analyzer decodes the track and compares its chroma frames.
- Press play and follow the highlighted chord, or select any timestamp to jump directly to that change.
How this chord identifier writes chord names
The timeline uses absolute chord names rather than Roman numerals. A plain letter such as C means a major triad; an “m” suffix such as Cm means a minor triad. For readable enharmonic spelling, B-flat and E-flat appear as flats while C-sharp, F-sharp, and G-sharp appear as sharps.
The key-context result describes the strongest major or minor center found across the selected audio. A relative major and minor share the same notes, so the context can be ambiguous even when an individual chord label is stable. Extended, suspended, inverted, and power-chord voicings are reduced to the nearest major or minor triad in this timeline.
What this audio chord detector does on your device
The browser decodes the file into memory, groups spectral peaks into a harmonic pitch-class profile, and compares a moving window with major and minor chord templates. Adjacent matching frames become timestamped segments; the selected audio never goes to an upload endpoint.
| Stage | Result | Technical reference |
|---|---|---|
| Decode | An in-memory audio buffer used by this page. | W3C Web Audio API |
| Chroma | A frame-by-frame harmonic pitch-class profile. | Essentia HPCP |
| Identify | Major or minor chord labels over a moving time window. | Essentia ChordsDetection |
Chord finder questions
These answers cover privacy, timeline behavior, chord spelling, and the musical limits of automatic recognition.
Does this chord analyzer upload my song?
No. Browser audio APIs and the bundled analysis engine read the file locally; no server receives the selected audio.
Can I see where every chord starts?
Yes. Each result includes a timestamp. Selecting it moves playback to that point, and the current chord changes as the track plays.
Why does a power chord appear as major or minor?
A power chord omits the third that distinguishes major from minor. This detector reports the closest triad supported by the surrounding harmonic evidence, so check ambiguous passages by ear.
Why can the chord sequence differ from a published chart?
Charts may simplify passing chords, choose enharmonic spellings for the song’s key, or describe a different arrangement. Dense mixes and melody notes can also change the strongest chroma match.
Does this chord finder use a song database?
No. It calculates from the selected recording, so it can analyze demos and private files that are absent from public song catalogs.
Audio decoding and chord analysis stay on this device. Clearing the file removes it from the page.