FAQ
Direct answers about note matching, chord input, tonic settings, instrument views and what this free scale finder deliberately does not do. Every answer describes the actual behaviour of the tool.
Last reviewed: 8 November 2026
A scale finder takes a group of notes or a chord and compares it with a catalogue of scales. Free Scale Finder shows exact, containing and nearby matches, with spelled notes, intervals and piano or guitar positions. It does not guess one “correct” scale when the notes fit several tonal centres.
Enter the notes in the first step using spaces, commas or new lines. Sharps, flats, Unicode accidentals and optional octaves are accepted. Duplicate pitch classes are removed. Then compare the exact, containing and nearby tabs. Add a tonic only if the song or lesson tells you one.
C E G is a C major triad. It has no exact scale match because this catalogue has no scale with exactly those three pitch classes. The containing tab shows scales that include all three notes, including C major and A natural minor. That breadth is the honest answer, not an error.
C major and A natural minor use the same seven pitch classes. Without a tonic, the notes alone cannot decide the tonal centre. The exact tab shows both, plus the related modes. Choosing C or A as the tonic narrows the result to the intended scale.
Choose a tonic only when the song, lesson or chord progression tells you what it is. Unknown is the safe default. The first note is never assumed to be the tonic, because a melody or riff can start on a note that is not the tonal centre.
Nearby allows at most one input note outside the scale and at most one scale note missing from your input. Each nearby result lists both differences so you can see what changed. It is an explicit one-note tolerance, not a confidence score or a hidden guess.
Supported qualities are major, minor, diminished, augmented, sus2, sus4, maj7, dominant 7, m7, dim7, m7b5, aug7, 7sus4 and mMaj7. One slash bass is allowed, such as C/G. Extensions such as add9, 9, 11, 13 and altered dominants are rejected with a visible message instead of being guessed.
Yes. Select a result to see its notes on a piano or a standard-tuning 12-fret guitar. The guitar view can be mirrored for left-handed players, and scale degrees are labelled as text. The fretboard is a scale-tone map, not a chord fingering, tab or voicing suggestion.
Yes. The separate Song Key & BPM Finder estimates major or minor key, Camelot code and tempo from MP3 or WAV files in your browser. Results are estimates: compare alternatives and correct them when needed. The notes finder still works directly from notes and chord symbols. No microphone is requested.
A small note set fits many scales. The containing tab is intentionally broad. Add more notes, choose a tonic, or switch to the exact tab to narrow the question. The tool will not pretend that a three-note input proves a single scale.
Yes, it is free and requires no account. Notes and chords are processed in your browser and are not uploaded to a server. Your theme and most recent search are saved in local storage on this device. You can remove the saved search using Forget saved session. Share links put the musical state in the URL fragment, which anyone with the link can read.
Matching uses pitch classes in twelve-tone equal temperament, so C♯ and D♭ count as the same pitch class. Octaves and duplicate spellings do not add extra notes. A result may use a different spelling to show its scale degrees correctly: F♯ major, for example, uses E♯ rather than F. The piano and guitar highlights still point to the same pitches.
Try it
The scale finder is free, needs no account and runs entirely in your browser. Start with a note set or a supported chord symbol.
Found a wrong spelling or an unclear answer? Send a correction with the exact input and the result you expected.