Show HN: A free tool to visualise scales on a guitar

I wanted to share something I’ve been working on that I think could be really helpful for fellow guitarists. It’s called StringScales (https://stringscales.com), and it’s a free tool that I built because, honestly, I've been able to learn so much about music on the internet, and I wanted to contribute something useful.

It started as a personal project. I’ve always felt that a lot of the tools available for guitarists could be better... more intuitive, more accessible, and without the constant need to pay for basic features like CAGED or 3NPS position highlighting.

So, I created StringScales to help visualize a plethora of scales across the fretboard in a way that’s straightforward and fully customisable to your practicing or teaching needs.

There’s no hidden costs or premium versions - just a simple, free tool that I hope will make your practice sessions a bit smoother. Whether you’re just starting out or have been playing for years, I think you'll find something useful in it.

I have a lot of features still planned (chords visualisation, harmony generation,...) but the only way I can keep making StringScales better is by deeply understanding the needs of the community. So, if you do decide to give it a try, I’d really appreciate any feedback.

Take a look at https://stringscales.com if you’re interested!

Show HN: A free tool to visualise scales on a guitar
stringscales.com

This might be a biased opinion, because it's how I do it and it works for me (ymmv), but I think starting with for example the major scale patterns in 3NPS is a great foundation. Once you know this by heart, and especially have learned the relative degrees of all the frets in the pattern, it becomes easier to learn a different scale formula relative to this major scale.

For example, when learning the myxolidian mode, I might go: "oh, but that's just the major scale with a lowered 7th degree!" And then I can apply that pattern easily on the fretboard.

Now, as for why this tool is useful (to me at least): it's really quick to visualise a position in a certain scale in a certain key, and show the note degrees (it's the "roman notation" setting). Especially for really exotic scales that have a lot of differences to the major scale (e.g. messiaen's modes), it is very useful to have a visual aid in front of me while playing.