MobileChords Reviews and Details

Questions & Answers

1. What makes MobileChords unique?

   The side-by-side view: every chord is shown on guitar AND piano at the same time, with each note color-coded by its harmonic function (root, third, fifth, seventh). Most chord tools cover one instrument; MobileChords treats them as one world, so you learn why a chord is what it is while looking up how to play it. It also works in reverse — tap frets or keys and it names the chord you are playing — and a song matcher shows which songs your current chords already cover. All of it is free, with no account, no ads and no cookies.

2. Why should a person choose MobileChords over its competitors?

   Because the common alternatives each miss something: most chord sites cover only guitar or only piano, bury the chart under ads, or put full access behind a subscription. MobileChords is completely free, shows both instruments at once, plays every voicing out loud, identifies chords in reverse, and spells notes correctly by key context (B-flat major is Bb–D–F, not A#–D–F). If you want tabs and full songs, a tab archive is the better tool — MobileChords is deliberately a chord reference and learning tool, not a tab site.

3. How would you describe the primary audience of MobileChords?

   Beginner to intermediate guitarists and pianists — especially self-taught players who look up chords while learning songs and want to understand what they are playing, not just copy a diagram. The song matcher is aimed squarely at beginners asking "what can I actually play with the chords I know, and what should I learn next?". The side-by-side view is also useful for music teachers who want to show how the same harmony looks on both instruments.

4. What's the story behind MobileChords?

   MobileChords was built by Enrico Homann, a software architect and guitarist from Mainz, Germany. Playing guitar and a bit of piano, he was annoyed that chord sites treat the two instruments as separate worlds and bury a simple lookup under ads and paywalls — so he built the tool he wanted to use: both instruments side by side, harmony made visible through color, and no monetization getting in the way. It launched in July 2026 as a product of Homann Software, with a hand-built TypeScript chord engine at its core.

5. Which are the primary technologies used for building MobileChords?

   A pure TypeScript chord engine with zero runtime dependencies: guitar voicings are not stored in a database but computed by a depth-first search over fret windows and scored for playability, with hand-curated shapes for the chords players learn first. The site is built with Next.js and Tailwind and served fully statically (550+ prerendered pages) from Vercel. Audio uses the Web Audio API. The engine runs entirely in the browser — there is no backend and no data leaves the page.