About

I built this because I kept losing my place. Segovia's scale book sat on the stand, the metronome ticked, and somewhere between the sixteenths and the quintuplets I would forget which rung I was on, or slip into a fingering that wasn't his.

Why Segovia's fingerings

Segovia's Diatonic Major and Minor Scales (1953) is a short book with a long reach. The fingerings move the left hand through the whole neck in a small number of positions, with shifts placed so the hand always lands somewhere it can stay. Generations of classical guitarists learned to shift by playing them daily. They are not the only good fingerings, but they are a shared vocabulary, and a tool should teach a vocabulary rather than invent one.

What the tool is

A metronome that knows the scales. It shows the fingering on a fretboard and in notation, sounds each note along with a click, and steps through eight rhythmic subdivisions at one tempo. The point is the ladder: the same notes, one tempo, more of them per beat each time.

What it isn't

It doesn't listen to you, score you, or keep streaks. There is nothing to unlock except the other 22 scales, and that is a single purchase. It doesn't include arpeggios, modes, or slurred scales; the 24 diatonic scales are the whole scope.