From scale charts to a practice partner: how Fretwise grew

1.0

Scales and chords you can see and hear

The first version had 20 scales and modes in all 12 keys, each with five CAGED positions, and 23 chord types with up to five shapes each. Tap a note and it plays with a plucked-string sound. Tap a chord shape and it strums. You could label the dots with note names, scale degrees or fingers, pick sharps or flats, and switch between seven tunings, from Drop D to DADGAD.

Fretwise Pro added a chord practice mode, a progression looper with 51 genre loops from blues and jazz to flamenco, lo-fi and metal, and the Songwriter Handbook. The handbook lists the chords of any key and sorts them by mood and tension, so you can pick the next chord of a song by how it should feel.

1.0.1 and 1.0.2

Getting the details right

Two small updates followed. 1.0.1 hid the open strings that fall outside a position box, so each CAGED shape shows only the notes you play in that shape.

1.0.2 changed how notes are spelled. Every degree of a scale now gets its own letter, so D Phrygian reads D, E♭, F, G, A, B♭, C, the way a theory book writes it, and never D, D♯, F. The same update fixed target tones, the highlight that marks a scale's own chord tones.

1.1

The notes between the frets

1.1 added Arabic maqam and Turkish makam. Eight maqamat and nine makamlar are drawn on the guitar neck, including the quarter tones and commas that fall between the frets. The Authentic view shows where each pitch really lies. The Standard view shows the fret to play and how far to bend the string to reach it.

Each mode comes with its ajnas or çeşniler, its sayr or seyir, an example phrase, five-fret positions, a tonic picker and a one-string layout. We also rebuilt the plucked-string sound for this release, so every note starts on a steady fundamental at its exact pitch.

1.1.1

Name the Note

1.1.1 added Name the Note, a quick quiz for learning the notes on the neck.

1.2

Three new tools and nine languages

1.2 added three Pro tools. The Chord & Scale Finder works in both directions: tap the frets of any shape and Fretwise names the chord, with its inversion or slash bass, or tap single notes and it lists every scale that contains them, tightest fit first.

In the Progression Builder you give each chord its own length in beats, set the tempo and choose 4/4 or 3/4, then loop it with a click and save the progressions you like.

The Theory Lab has seven short lessons, each built around one picture you can move. They cover intervals, the modes ordered by brightness, comparing scales, building chords, the scales that fit over a chord, and the circle of fifths.

The app also learned eight more languages: Spanish, Turkish, French, German, Arabic, Russian, Italian and Portuguese. Note names can show as solfège (Do Re Mi), and two scales joined the library, Lydian Augmented and Whole-Half Diminished. The fretboard now draws the high E string on top, as tablature does. If you prefer the old view, Settings has a switch for it.

1.4

Practice routines, a tuner, a metronome, 56 chords and 65 scales

1.4 is the largest update so far. The app has a new home with four tabs, Play, Practice, Theory and Saved, and one search for chords, scales, maqam, exercises and lessons. In the Practice tab you pick exercises from the library, join them into a routine and play it as one scrolling tab with a metronome, with each block at its own tempo.

A block can play in three ways. Steady keeps one tempo. The speed trainer raises the tempo every few passes until it reaches your goal, and if it gets ahead of your hands, one tap on Too fast stops the climb where you are. Bursts alternate short passes above your clean tempo with rests. Fretwise keeps your best tempo and your practice minutes for every exercise, and the session summary shows any new best.

The library has 127 technique exercises, from finger warm-ups and alternate picking to legato, bends, sweeps, rhythm and fingerstyle. Another 129 exercises are written in the style of 70 players. They are original exercises that teach a player's techniques, and none of them is taken from a song. On top of that come 24 kinds of exercise that Fretwise builds for any key, scale and position: scale sequences, three-notes-per-string shapes, arpeggios, sweeps, triad inversions, chord changes, strumming patterns and more. Nine ready routines are there to start from. Everyone gets a new Daily 15 routine every day, and one Pro exercise is open to all.

Two tools came with it, both free. The tuner listens through the microphone in any of ten tunings, or names any note you play. The metronome has accents, odd groupings like 2+2+3, subdivisions and tap tempo, and keeps playing while you look around the app.

The chord and scale library grew as well. 33 new chord types bring the total to 56, among them 13ths, 11ths, 6/9 chords and altered dominants, each with fingerings in every key. 43 new scales bring the total to 65, with every mode of the melodic minor, harmonic minor, harmonic major and double harmonic major scales, plus the Neapolitan, bebop and Japanese scales. The Chord & Scale Finder knows all of the new chords, and it now names 11th and 13th chords even when the 9th is left out.