Comparison

ChordDeck vs Scale Syllabus

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

ChordDeck

This app provides jazz chord flashcards for musicians to practice chord recall. It displays chord symbols, tones, formulas, and keyboard highlights, with audio playback. Users can mark difficult cards for later review.

Highlights
  • Practice jazz chord qualities
  • Circle-of-fourths or random root order
  • Continuous or one-pass practice sessions
  • View chord tones, formulas, and keyboard highlights
  • Built-in audio playback
  • Mark and review difficult cards
  • Local storage for settings and marked cards
Features
Read full description

ChordDeck is a compact flashcard app for practicing jazz chord recall. Choose the roots and chord qualities you want to drill, then move through a focused deck one card at a time. Each card starts with a chord symbol so you can recall the answer mentally or on your instrument before revealing the details. Reveal a card to check the chord tones, a short formula, a compact piano keyboard highlight, and built-in audio playback. Mark difficult cards during practice and review them again later from the first screen. ChordDeck is designed for musicians who already know basic chord concepts and want a fast, repeatable way to build fluency. It keeps practice visual and direct instead of turning each session into a lesson page. Features: - Practice common jazz chord qualities across selected roots. - Follow circle-of-fourths root order or use random card order. - Choose one-pass sessions or continuous practice. - Reveal chord tones, formulas, and compact keyboard highlights. - Hear chord tones followed by the full chord. - Mark difficult cards and review them in a focused deck. - Use swipe navigation, previous and next controls, and timed autoplay. - Keep practice settings and marked cards stored locally on your device. ChordDeck is useful for jazz students, pianists, guitarists, bassists, arrangers, and other musicians who want quicker recognition of chord symbols, tones, and formulas.

About

Scale Syllabus

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Scale Syllabus puts the 253 scales of Complete Scale Syllabus by Gianluca Barbaro in your pocket, and lets you see, hear and transpose every one of them. The scales are not a stored list. The app rebuilds them with the algorithm the book itself was made with: every seventh chord, every combination of available tensions, folded together by rotation. That is why the numbering matches the printed page exactly — scale 145 here is scale 145 in the book. WHAT YOU CAN DO • See any scale in standard notation, on a piano keyboard, or on a guitar or bass fretboard • Transpose to any of the twelve keys, with each note spelled the way a musician would write it • Start from any degree: pick a mode and the scale is shown from that note, in the key you chose • Hear a scale or any of its chords, ascending or arpeggiated, with the notes lighting up as they sound • See the triads and four-note chords every degree carries, inversions included, and view any of them the same three ways • Read the fretboard as a whole map, or touch a fret for the run one hand can play from there • Ask for a chord and the neck answers with shapes a hand can really hold — tap again for the next one • Walk through the sixteen ways a four-note chord can be laid out inside two octaves of keyboard • Choose your instrument once, and clef, written octave and transposition follow • Find a scale from the notes themselves: play a phrase into the microphone, or type the note names, and the app lists the scales that contain them and says what chord they make • Follow the relationships: which scales contain this one, which ones it contains, and which are a note away • Print a scale as a sheet of engraved music, export it as PDF, or share it • Read six short chapters of music theory, with figures the app draws itself • Mark favourites and keep your own written notes on any scale A guided tour goes through all of it the first time you open the app, and it can be replayed whenever you like. The app speaks English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese and Chinese, and you can look for a scale in your own language. The names of the scales themselves stay as the book prints them. WHAT MAKES IT ACCURATE The book's own derivation quietly loses four chord types, and with them five scales. This app generates them too — appended at the end, so that not a single number from the printed book moves. Note spelling follows musical function rather than whatever is cheapest to compute: a minor seventh chord is written C Eb G Bb, never C D# G A#. FREE AND COMPLETE Three scales are always open: major, harmonic minor and melodic minor — and with the major come all its modes, natural minor included. You can open two more of your choice, and the ones you open stay yours. A single purchase opens all 258 scales and unlocks printing, PDF export and sharing — no subscription, no account. Nothing you write leaves your device. The app has no accounts, no advertising and no tracking of any kind, and what you play into the microphone is analysed as it arrives and never recorded, stored or sent anywhere. Reports of wrong or missing scale names are welcome: me@barbaro.it

Screenshots

ChordDeck4 screens
Scale Syllabus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Scale Syllabus at Free against ChordDeck's $0.99. Scale Syllabus also leads on device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). ChordDeck's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Scale Syllabus is free to download; ChordDeck costs $0.99 up front. Scale Syllabus sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. ChordDeck asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
ChordDeck versus Scale Syllabus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterChordDeckScale Syllabus
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB23 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShinhye LeeBarbaro Gianluca

In-app purchases

None

ChordDeck

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Scale Syllabus

One-time1
  • Scale Syllabus Complete$8.99

Questions

Is ChordDeck free?
ChordDeck costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Scale Syllabus free?
Scale Syllabus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do ChordDeck or Scale Syllabus have ads?
Neither ChordDeck nor Scale Syllabus shows ads.

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