Chord Machine CM-01

Problem

Learning piano chord theory as a music producer felt unintuitive and overly technical, with few tools that allowed for fast, creative exploration based on sound and emotion rather than theory.

User

Music producers, beginners, and creatives who want to explore chords quickly, hear ideas instantly, and build musical intuition without needing deep theoretical knowledge.

What I Built

Chord Machine CM-01, a web-based music composition tool that transforms chord exploration into a hardware-inspired experience. Users can play all 24 major and minor chords, hear them instantly using the Web Audio API, explore harmony through a Mood Map organized by emotional feel, and build chord progressions with a queue that supports looping, saving, and MIDI controller input.

Where AI Fits

Used Claude Sonnet 4.6 and OpenAI Codex as agentic AI coding assistants to explore implementation approaches, accelerate development, and solve unfamiliar audio programming challenges.

My Role

Conceived, designed, and developed the entire application independently using vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, focusing on intuitive UX, sound design, and translating music theory into an interactive tool.

Iteration Based on User Feedback

User feedback revealed that the initial experience felt too rigid and grid-based, limiting natural creativity. Many users wanted to play freely without pre-building progressions and felt the tool behaved more like a sequencer than an instrument.

To address this, the app was redesigned around a performance-first workflow. I introduced free MIDI recording with unquantized timing, allowing users to capture real, expressive performances without snapping to a grid. The sequencer now updates in real time, enabling users to play first and see their ideas form instantly.

Additional updates included support for free-form chord voicings, raw MIDI playback to preserve human feel, and a live drum pad interface with unquantized recording. I also improved onboarding to clearly guide users through the new workflow.

These changes shifted the tool from a structured chord builder to a flexible musical sketchpad, better aligned with how producers naturally create.

Outcome / Intended Impact

Makes chord exploration more accessible, intuitive, and creatively driven, helping users quickly generate ideas, understand harmony through feeling, and integrate music theory into their workflow naturally.