Suggester : chords and scales

Mathieu Routhier

About this app

Suggester is a tool to assist in the creation of songs and chord progressions. This app will help you find chords that work together. It is efficient and fun; use it to build musical phrases that will carry emotion through tension and release.

Select chords for their harmonic function. The app makes full use of the roman numeral notation.

Simply touch a chord to hear how it sound like. Press the play button to hear the chord progression sequentially and adjust the playback speed.

You can work either forward or backward:

FORWARD - Pick a scale, then build your song from the chords that the app suggests. That’s the quickest way to assemble chords that are compatible.

BACKWARD - From the catalog, pick a set of chords that you like. The app will tell you what scales it matches with. After you have selected the scale you want to use, the app can tell you what chords will fit in with the ones you entered before. That is extremely useful in jam sessions!

Pick chords and scales from our huge catalog. To go even further, you can create your own custom scales and custom chords.

To spice things up, you can borrow chords from parallel scales.

Explore new territories by using modulation.

Browse the classic chord progressions to find inspiration.

Use Drag and Drop to reorder chords. Hold your finger on an item for a second to start the drag operation. On a tablet, you can also drag chords directly from the suggestions to anywhere in your progression.

Swipe a chord from right to left to delete it.

Tap the note button on the left to change the duration of a chord.

Export your songs as MIDI or text.

Every sound generated with the app is also sent to the MIDI output, configurable in the Options. You can route these notes to another app on your device or an external MIDI port.

You can trigger chords through the MIDI input.

Ratings and reviews

My #1 tool for songwriting! In years of searching, I have never found a chord progression app so powerful and intuitive. Mathieu (the developer) was quick to assist when I encountered technical difficulties. I love the customization options, although I wish there was a little more flexibility in voicing options, the ability to freely arrange notes within a chord would be a godsend for voice leading. Still for all the features, the user-friendly interface, and the ease of use, Suggester is 10/10!

Shut up and take my money! My only musical experience has been working with applications and programs and my only musical education has been from watching music theory videos on YT. I love this app! It was exactly what I needed. The app is intuitively designed and is easy to use after reading a few pop up instructions. When reading about music theory or listening to someone talk about it, I've only ever managed to vaguely grasp it. With this app I finally get it! ♥️

Overall, I love it ♥️ it's really cool how flexible it is and simple 👍🏻 It uniquely has all features i was looking for. Biggest obstacle for me that app doesn't manage chord progression files, making it hard to find, overview. Yes, i can do some complicated folder structure, however, i would also appreciate some filtering/tags/search (say show me all from this artist or in D). Another problem is no automatic save. Lost progress several times 🥲 if those two problems solved, I'll give 5 stars.

What's new

Resolved an issue with document compatibility across platforms.