path: root/website/sandbox/chord-drill-sergeant/README.md

# Chord Drill Sergeant (CDS)

Are you a musician looking for a more effective way to improve your craft? Maybe
you're a music teacher looking to create useful exercises to give your students.

Studying music theory can be a fruitful undertaking, but it can often overwhelm
or bore students. I think that if practicing is enjoyable, students will
practice more. Practice doesn't make perfect; *perfect* practice makes perfect.
Chord Drill Sergeant is a web app that lowers the barrier to practicing and
internalizing music theory.

## How does it work?

1. Grab a cell phone or a laptop and your instrument.
2. Open a web browser and visit the Chord Drill Sergeant app (URL and app forthcoming).
3. Set the tempo at which you would like to practice.
4. Set the target duration of your session.
5. Select the key(s) and chord(s) you would like to practice.
6. Set the tempo (i.e. pace) at which you would like to practice.
7. CDS will display chords at various rhythmic intervals during your practice
   session. It is your job to play these chords in time before the next chord
   appears.

## Highlights

Here are some useful features of CDS:
- Tempo: Set the rate at which CDS displays chords.
- Predefined practice sessions: CDS offers users a few practice sessions to get
  users started. The goal, however, is to teach users to create their own
  bespoke practice sessions. CDS aims to foster a community of practitioners who
  curate and share their practice sessions.
- Whitelist / blacklist: Construct the set of chords you would like to
  practice. Let's say you only want to practice triads in the keys of F, C, and
  G. Would you also like to avoid diminished chords? Or maybe you *only* want to
  practice major-7th chords for *all* keys. CDS supports all of these scenarios
  and many others. You can save these chord configurations to reuse them at any
  time. You can also share chord configurations with other CDS users if you find
  the practice useful.
- Inversions: Every chord has inversions. For instance, every triad (i.e. chord
  composed of three notes) has three inversions: root, second, and third
  positions. CDS acknowledges all of the positions in which chords may appear
  and helps you study all, some, or none of these inversions.
- Harmony: CDS understands basic harmony and can sort the chords you would like
  to train in various harmonious permutations.
- Chaos-mode: Feeling confident? Throw the classical notions of harmony to the
  wayside and use CDS in "chaos-mode" where CDS samples randomly from the Circle
  of Fifths.