Know The Changes

NerdBoy Software

About this app

Don't mistake reading the chart for knowing the tune.

Know the Changes makes you recall jazz standards without keeping every chord in front of you — a section at a time, in the original key or another, until the chart can disappear completely.

I built it for a familiar problem.

You can play a standard perfectly well while reading it. Then someone calls it at a gig or jam session, the chart is gone, and suddenly you are not completely sure what happens in the bridge.

So Know the Changes removes the safety net gradually.

Choose a standard and study the complete chart. Then hide 25%, 50%, 75% or every chord.

Autumn Leaves. First eight bars.

Some changes remain visible. The others become choices. Fill in the missing bars, check the section and move through the tune until you can reconstruct the entire form.

Then make it harder.

Hide more of the chart. Choose another key. Find out whether you understand the harmony or have simply memorised a sequence of chord names.

It doesn’t teach the melody. It doesn’t give you solos or licks to memorise. And it doesn’t try to be a complete jazz course.

That’s deliberate.

This app does one job: it gets the changes out of the chart and into your memory.

A collection of common jazz standards is included, so you can start practising immediately.

Already have your preferred changes in iReal Pro? Share a song or playlist in iReal Pro format and open it directly in Know the Changes. That way you can learn the version you actually play, even when musicians disagree about the changes.

Because on the stand, recognising a chart is not the same as knowing the tune.

Know the changes. Leave the chart behind.

Know the Changes is not affiliated with or endorsed by iReal Pro.

What’s new

First release: chord-chart quiz practice for jazz standards, with iReal Pro chart import.