chordgen

MIDI chord trainer written in Anchor.

Windows only. The console setup (SetConsoleOutputCP, _setmode) and build toolchain rely on Windows APIs and MSVC.

Prerequisites

• Anchor compiler (anchorc on PATH)
• Visual Studio with the x64 Native Tools environment (Community or Build Tools)
• vcpkg with PortMidi installed:

  vcpkg install portmidi:x64-windows

  Add C:\vcpkg\installed\x64-windows\bin to your PATH so portmidi.dll is found at runtime.

Build

.\build.ps1

Usage

.\chordgen.exe [options]

Running without arguments shows a menu to pick a lesson. Each lesson is a sequence of exercises; each exercise picks a random key and random inversions, then asks you to play through a chord progression repeatedly.

• Correct — moves to the next chord in the progression
• Wrong — shows what you actually played and lets you try again
• Unrecognized — chord wasn't a known major, minor, or diminished triad
• After completing all chords in the progression, the same key and inversions repeat for the remaining rounds, then the next exercise begins

Options

Flag	Description
-l, --list	List all available lessons and exit.
--lesson N	Start lesson N directly, skipping the menu.
-s, --select-device	List available MIDI input devices and choose one interactively. Without this flag the first input device is used automatically.
-d, --debug	Print raw MIDI note numbers on every key press and release.
-h, --help	Show usage information and exit.

Examples

.\chordgen.exe                       # show lesson menu
.\chordgen.exe --list                # list all lessons
.\chordgen.exe --lesson 2            # start lesson 2 directly
.\chordgen.exe -s                    # pick MIDI device interactively
.\chordgen.exe --lesson 3 -d         # lesson 3 with debug note output

Lessons

#	Name	Description
1	C major Triads, infinite
2	D major Triads, infinite
3	F major Triads, infinite
4	B♭ major Triads, infinite
5	I - V - VI - IV (Major)	I - V - VI - IV in C, D, F, B♭ — 10 reps

Chord coverage

Chords the trainer can generate and recognize:

Type	Chords
Major	C, D, E♭, F, F♯, G, A, B♭
Minor	C, C♯, D, E, G, A, B
Diminished	E, A, B

All three inversions (root, 1st, 2nd) are included for each chord.