[tzs]

1. How do you decide on which of the possible ways to play the chord to include? For instance consider B♭ Major 7th, which has the notes B♭ D F A.

One way to play it is x13231 (numbers are fret numbers) using a bar on 1, giving B♭ F A D F. Another way to play it in the same general area of the fretboard is x00331, giving A D B♭ D F.

The tool shows the first, and does not show the second.

2. A display mode that might be useful to add is one that shows all the places on the fretboard that you can play notes of the chord. I've got an ancient command line tool that does this. Here's its output for a B♭ Major 7th cord:

     |-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-<7>-|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|
     |-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-<7>-|-<1>-|-----|
     |-----|-<7>-|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|
  <3>|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-<7>-|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|
  <7>|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-<7>-|
     |-<5>-|-----|-----|-----|-<7>-|-<1>-|-----|-----|-----|-<3>-|-----|-----|

The numbers are the intervals in the chord, so it is showing all the places you can play the root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th.

Adding such a display at the bottom of your page after the chord diagrams could be helpful if someone is having trouble fingering one of the suggested forms. They can look at the whole fretboard diagram and see if there are any notes of the chord that are an easier reach for whatever finger is giving them trouble.

3. Does anyone know something that goes the other way? I would like to give the notes and be told what the chord is called. Earlier this year I scanned all the handouts from the classical/flamenco guitar class I took in college 40+ years ago, and started trying to remember/relearn guitar after decades of not playing by trying to work through the pieces that I remembered once being able to play decently.

One of the pieces was this lively anonymous Spanish piece [1]. I noticed on the chord diagrams at the top that what it calls a B♭ is not the normal B♭. The notes actually in the diagramed chord are A D B♭ D F♭. I tried playing it as diagrammed, and playing a normal B♭ or B♭ Major 7th thinking maybe the diagram was in error, but it sounded a little better played as diagramed. I also found a YouTube video of a longer and fancier version of this piece that included tab, and it too played that chord as diagrammed. The diagram then appears to be right...it just isn't named right.

It took a while to find a name for that chord. The big list here [2] failed me. I finally found this article [3] which tells me it is B♭maj7(♭5).

[1] https://imgur.com/a/VBG7Fja

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chords

[3] http://brunojazz.com/vt-Maj7flat5.htm

[WorkLobster]

As someone that enjoys trying to make up inversions on the spot, and laments that chord charts only ever seem to acknowledge open chords and E/A-shape barres, that command line tool looks fantastic. Is it available to download anywhere?

(P.S. I can't work out the tuning in the score you posted, but it looks like another user posting above[1] made a tool that provides a fingering -> chord name solver?)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32979909

[tzs]

You can get the source for that command line tool here [1]. It's a single file C program that just uses stdio.h and stdlib.h and inputs from stdin and outputs to stdout, so should be easy to get working on anything that has a C compiler and a terminal with a simple "cc chord.c".

There's a little bit of documentation in this comment from a couple years ago [2]. There's a source link in that comment too, but that is to an older version. I added a couple more chord types later so use [1] instead.

Note: I'm not sure I got all the chord types quite right, so be sure to look at the notes it says are in the chord you asked for to make sure it got the right notes.

Check out the whole post that [2] was a comment on. There were several other people who also commented sharing guitar or music tools they had developed.

[1] https://pastebin.com/HKyKWHip

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23922951