✦ Exploratory · beyond the papers, not peer reviewed
The chord wheel
Put the twelve notes on the twelve places of a quarter of the palindrome, and every chord becomes a polygon inside the wheel, as on the circle of fifths. The inner palindrome (24 places) and the whole palindrome (50 places) hold two and four octaves of twelve, so there the chords get voices. Here you can choose how the notes are laid out, build any chord, hear it, measure its shape, and see which values of the palindrome lie under its notes. Which note goes on which place is a choice, not something the formula gives, so this page is an exploration.
Hear it
Click a place on the wheel or a row of the table to hear a chord, or press ▶.
Click places on the wheel to add or remove notes. The first one is the root.
—
This chord on every root
On a layout with one place per note in each octave, every root gives the same polygon, only turned. What changes is which values of the palindrome lie under the notes. Click a row to show that root on the wheel.