OCTOPUS

Guide

One screen. Three questions.

Which key, what to play, where on the neck. The column on the left answers them; the neck shows the result; the bar under the neck plays it. Here is what every part does.

The Octopus app with numbered areas: modes, settings, key, what to play, where on the neck, the neck, degree chips, play bar and view.
  1. 1

    Modes

    The five ways to use the neck. Explore is the free neck. Build, Find it and Ear training are exercises. Study is a clean, full-width neck for playing along.

  2. 2

    Share, help and Settings

    Share copies a link to this exact neck: key, scale or chord, frets and strings. ? explains the colours and every degree. Settings holds what you choose once: note names (C D E or Do Re Mi), sound (Jazz, Nylon, Synth), theme (Auto, Cream, Night), left-handed neck, metronome click and count-in. Octopus remembers them.

  3. 3

    Key

    The root, the note everything is measured from. Black keys show both names (C# and Db) until you pick one; then the button shows the spelling that fits what you play: Db major, G# minor.

  4. 4

    What to play

    Scales and modes on one tab, chords on the other, grouped by family: major, dominant, minor, half-diminished and diminished. Clear · root only leaves just the root, so you can build your own sound with the degree chips (7).

  5. 5

    Where on the neck

    Frets: the whole neck, or one of five 4–5 fret areas. Pick two neighbouring areas to play across them: Diagonal runs one line up the neck, One at a time plays each area in turn. Strings: keep only some strings, a pair or three, and follow the neck sideways; the arrows slide the set one string up or down.

  6. 6

    The neck

    Every note shows its degree over the root. Colour is the note's job: root coral, third teal, fifth blue with a ring, seventh yellow, tensions (9, 11, 13) outlined in violet. Click a fret to hear it; double-click it, or hold it on a phone, to make it the new root.

  7. 7

    Degree chips

    Switch single degrees on and off. Each group offers its versions: b9 or 9, b3 or 3, b5 or 5, b13 or 13, b7 or 7. Turn off the 5 and the 9 and you see only what defines the chord.

  8. 8

    Play

    Play runs the lit notes from the root to the root, lighting each one as it sounds, with real guitar samples. − / + change the tempo. The rhythm menu holds the tempo slider, the subdivision (eighths, triplets, 16ths) and the pattern (straight, 3rds, groups of 3 or 4, triads). Loop repeats. Drone holds the root (1) or root and fifth (1+5) under everything. On a computer the space bar plays and stops.

  9. 9

    View

    Intervals or Notes on the circles: degrees by default, note names when you want them. Shell 1·3·7 keeps only root, third and seventh across the whole neck.

Practice

The four exercises.

Pick them from the modes at the top. Each keeps your neck as you left it and gives it back when you exit. The Drone works in all of them.

Build

A chord and a zone on an empty neck. Tap every chord tone; each right note shows its degree, each mistake tells you what you touched. Short uses three strings, Full every string. Hint, Solution, Next.

Find it

The roots are lit. Find every position of one degree in the zone: every 3, every b7. All 12 asks any degree, not only those of the scale or chord you picked.

Ear training

You hear one note; find its degree on the neck. Hear root plays the root when you want a reference, or switch the Drone on. Replay, Show, Next.

Study

The neck alone, full width, with a small bar: Play, tempo, Loop, Drone, Exit. Esc also exits.

On the phone

Same app, sized for your hand.

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