Gitar

A command-line tool for programmer-guitarists.

Gitar? Do you git it?

Download and installation

Note: you will need Rust on your machine in order to use this tool. If you don't, you can visit https://rustup.rs/ to install it.

console $ git clone https://github.com/thfm/gitar.git $ cd gitar $ cargo install --path . --force

A note regarding note input

Functionality for note input is common between commands; thus, it is covered here once for convenience.

You only need to supply a name when inputting notes, but can optionally specify an octave number as well (for situations where it matters):

Examples of valid note inputs are C, F, Ab0, and B10.

Examples of invalid note inputs are D#3 and A-10.

Command usages

find

The find command is for finding the different fretboard locations of a note. For example,

console $ gitar find E4

produces a fretboard diagram that looks like this:

console 5 occurences: -----∗ 0 ││││││ 1 ││││││ 2 ││││││ 3 ││││││ 4 ││││∗│ 5 ││││││ 6 ││││││ 7 ││││││ 8 │││∗││ 9 ││││││ 10 ││││││ 11 ││││││ 12 ││││││ 13 ││∗│││ 14 ││││││ 15 ││││││ 16 ││││││ 17 ││││││ 18 │∗││││ 19

Each fretboard location is shown as a ∗, with the numbers on the side indicating the fret number.

If there are no occurences of the given note, the output will say as such:

console $ gitar find Bb20 No occurences.

Adjusting the tuning

What if you want to find the locations of a certain note in a non-standard tuning? Simply specify open string note values for the tuning option:

console $ gitar find D2 --tuning D2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4 1 occurence: ∗----- 0

You don't actually have to put in six values; in fact, you can type any number of notes, and the program will construct a guitar with that many strings. This means that you can use find for bass guitars as well, as is demonstrated below:

console $ gitar find Gb1 --tuning E1 A1 D2 G2 1 occurence: ∗│││ 2

Adding a capo

You can add a capo by specifying the fret that you want it to be placed on after the capo option:

console: $ gitar find F2 --capo 1 ∗----- 0

Note that the fret numbering will change to treat the capo as if it were the nut.

Changing the number of frets

Finally, you may encounter a scenario where the output of find is different from what you expect. Take the following, for example:

console $ gitar find E6

This outputs No occurences, which is true for most guitars, except for those with 24 or more frets (or a different tuning). You can use the frets option if this exception applies:

console $ gitar find E6 --frets 24 1 occurence: │││││∗ 24

This option is also useful for when you want to simulate a guitar with less than the default number of frets (which, in this program, is 21):

console $ gitar find F4 -f 18 4 occurences: │││││∗ 1 ││││││ 2 ││││││ 3 ││││││ 4 ││││││ 5 ││││∗│ 6 ││││││ 7 ││││││ 8 ││││││ 9 │││∗││ 10 ││││││ 11 ││││││ 12 ││││││ 13 ││││││ 14 ││∗│││ 15

notes

The notes command simply outputs the notes in a given key. You use it like this:

console $ gitar notes C C D E F G A B

The default mode is ionian, but you can easily change that using the mode option:

console $ gitar notes Eb --mode Aeolian Eb F Gb Ab Bb B Db

keys

keys is essentially the opposite of notes: you give it a list of notes, and it outputs possible keys (called 'candidates') to which they belong:

console $ gitar key C D E F A 14 candidates: C Ionian (C D E F G A B) C Lydian (C D E F G A Bb) D Dorian (D E F G A B C) D Aeolian (D E F G A Bb C) E Phrygian (E F G A B C D) E Locrian (E F G A Bb C D) F Ionian (F G A Bb C D E) F Mixolydian (F G A B C D E) G Dorian (G A Bb C D E F) G Lydian (G A B C D E F) A Phrygian (A Bb C D E F G) A Aeolian (A B C D E F G) Bb Mixolydian (Bb C D E F G A) B Locrian (B C D E F G A)

You can filter candidates by their root note with the root option:

console $ gitar key C D E F A --root D 2 candidates: D Dorian (D E F G A B C) D Aeolian (D E F G A Bb C)