Chord Walker – Clever Levers

Chord Walker is a training tool for musicians who need to “walk” through chord changes. It was written by a bass player to practice Real Book sight-reading, and would be helpful for anyone who needs to navigate progressions. If you play I-IV-V blues all the time, Chord Walker won’t be of much use. But if you’ve ever found yourself stumbling with fingering or note selection, trying to manage a clean line from a vi to a IV, time spent with Chord Walker can (eventually) make those shifts second nature.

The idea is this: diligent practice of a tune will lead your fingers to link its chords, but that progression pattern is specific to just that tune—or to tunes that share its structure. It won’t apply to new material, so you are back to repetitive and limited finger training.

That’s where Chord Walker comes in. To avoid the repetition trap and gain genuine fluency, the app generates random-but-reasonable chord progressions. They follow the major key conventions of chord leading, with standard cadences at the end of each phrase that lead back to the tonic. Each bar in a phrase displays the current chord’s root and its interval and character (major, minor, dominant, diminished). The progressions won’t actually be played by Chord Walker, since the goal is to master chord navigation on your instrument, reflecting your chosen style, personal taste, and tempo.

Want to switch to a different key? That’s one tap away. Find something especially interesting/tricky to work on? Save it for future study. Getting a bit bored? Generate a new progression. At the very least, Chord Walker will improve your ability to see and connect chord relationships. With some practice, you’ll also bump into new possibilities for composition and improvisation. Enjoy.