User Guide

First launch. A short welcome tour asks which instrument you play (you can switch anytime in Settings), shows what the app can do, and asks for microphone access. The mic powers the tuner and chord detection. Audio is analyzed live on your device and never recorded or uploaded, except recordings you make yourself in the Recorder, and those stay on your device too.

Free trial and unlock. Chord Donkey is free to try for 3 days. After that, a one-time purchase of $4.99 unlocks it forever, with no subscription. The banner in Settings shows your remaining trial time; tap it to purchase. Already bought it on another device? Tap Restore Purchases on the unlock screen. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Your instrument. Chords, tuner strings, and practice detection all follow the instrument selected in Settings: Ukulele or Guitar.

Your chord library: about 50 ukulele chords and 60 guitar chords, each with a fingering diagram.

• Search by name ("Am", "Cmaj7").
• Filter by category (major, minor, 7th, and more), difficulty, or genre. Genre filters mark the essential chords for that style.
• Resize diagrams with the slider to suit your eyes or screen.
• Play (speaker icon) to hear the chord so you know what you're aiming for.
• Listen (mic icon) to play the chord on your instrument and watch live feedback: an accuracy reading, green badges for the notes it hears, red for the ones it's missing.
• Tap the card for the detail view: the notes in the chord, the chord formula, common progressions it appears in, and playing tips.

Reading the diagrams. Vertical lines are strings (labeled with their open notes), horizontal lines are frets. Numbered dots show which finger to use (1 = index, 4 = pinky); turn numbers off in Settings if you prefer clean dots. Circles above the top line are open strings. Root notes appear in a highlight color (also optional in Settings).

The heart of the app: pick a song, play it, and Chord Donkey advances chord by chord as you get each one right.

Starter songs

Every instrument comes with nine built-in songs, three per level:

• Beginner: the first chords everyone learns, at a gentle pace.
• Intermediate: seventh chords, suspensions, minor-seven colors.
• Advanced: barre shapes, jazz voicings, chromatic movement.

Deleted a starter you want back? Settings → Replay welcome tour restores them.

Your own songs

Tap + on the Practice tab to build a song:

• Sections: organize your song into Verse, Chorus, Bridge, and so on. Tap the section name to pick a label; use the trash button to remove a section.
• Chords: tap + in a section to open the chord picker. Remove a chord with the × on its chip. Reorder by dragging a chip, or press-and-hold (right-click on Mac) for Move Left / Move Right.
• Strum pattern (optional): choose a preset (Island Strum, Folk, Ballad, Rock, Down on the Beat) or write your own: D down, U up, - pause, x mute, with spaces between beats, for example D DU UDU. The pattern shows as arrows in the editor and during practice. Apply to All Sections copies it across the song.
• Lyrics (optional): each section can hold lyric lines for reference.

Songs save automatically as you edit. To practice, tap the orange play button on any song. To delete a song, use the trash button on its row (Mac) or swipe left on it (iPhone/iPad).

Practicing a song

Start a session and the first chord fills the screen with its diagram, its name, and the section's strum arrows if you set them.

1. Play the chord. A clear strum works best; let it ring.
2. Watch the feedback: matched notes turn green, and hints like "Hold it…" tell you what the app needs.
3. When you've got it, the chord flashes green and the next one appears. At song tempo, a clean strum advances in about half a second.

• Skip jumps past a chord that's fighting you; it's marked "skipped" in your results instead of counting against your streak.
• Loop (repeat button) restarts the song automatically when you clear the last chord, and the footer counts your laps. Toggle it off to finish at the end of the current pass.
• × ends the session; leaving the app pauses it.

Results. When the song ends you get a score ring, your best streak, a skipped count, laps if you looped, and a chord-by-chord breakdown. Practice Again restarts the same song.

Tips for reliable detection

• Tune first (Tools → Tuner). Detection compares what it hears against the true pitches of each chord.
• Strum, don't tickle. The app waits for a real strum before judging, so ambient noise can't advance the song.
• Let chords ring. The listener identifies notes as they sound.
• A quieter room helps, but isn't required. The app adapts to your surroundings.

Don't have a song in mind? Describe one and Chord Donkey writes it for you.

• Tap the sparkles button on the Practice tab.
• Describe the song in plain words, like "a slow, sad ukulele song about rain", and pick a difficulty.
• Tap Generate. In a few seconds the song appears in your list with sections, chords, and strum patterns, ready to practice or edit like any other song.

Song credits

The unlock includes 25 AI-generated songs. Need more? A $1.99 pack adds 50. Your balance is tied to your App Store purchase, so it follows you across devices.

Privacy and connectivity

Generating a song needs an internet connection. Your song description is sent to our server to compose the chart and is not stored. See the privacy policy for details.

Tuner

Tap Start Tuner and play one string at a time.

• The big letter shows the note it hears; the gauge needle shows how far off you are in cents. Left is flat (♭), right is sharp (♯).
• The needle turns green within 5 cents (in tune, and the note glows), orange when you're close, red when you're far.
• The string buttons below show your instrument's tuning (from Settings) and light up as the tuner hears each string.

Recorder

Record your practice and hear yourself improve.

• Optionally name the recording, then tap Start Recording. A timer and level meter run while recording; tap Stop Recording to save.
• My Recordings lists everything you've captured with date, length, and size. From there you can play, rename, share/export, or delete. Search and sort options live at the top.
• Recordings are stored on your device only.

• Instrument: Ukulele or Guitar. Changes the chord library, tuner strings, and practice detection everywhere.
• Tuning: standard plus alternates (Low G, Baritone for ukulele; Drop D, Open G, DADGAD and more for guitar). The tuner follows it.
• Left-handed mode: mirrors every chord diagram.
• Show finger numbers: numbered dots vs. plain dots on diagrams.
• Highlight root notes: marks each chord's root in the diagrams.
• Show note labels: prints the note names on the diagram dots.
• Replay welcome tour: runs onboarding again and restores any deleted starter songs.
• The footer shows the app version and your chord library size.

Sign into the same Apple ID on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac and Chord Donkey keeps them in step automatically, with nothing to set up:

• Your preferences (instrument, tuning, left-handed mode, diagram options) sync within moments.
• Your songs, including strum patterns, sync through iCloud. Edit a song on the Mac, practice it on your phone.
• Recordings stay on the device that made them.
• No iCloud account? Everything simply stays local.

Still stuck?

Reach out and a real person from Pixel Guild will get back to you, usually within a day.

Include your macOS or iOS version and the app version (shown at the bottom of Settings) so we can help faster.