Patent ID: 7184701

Claim:
A learning aid for use on a computer to facilitate learning to play a stringed musical instrument, comprising: a circular matrix being displayed on the computer and having a plurality of columns and a plurality of rows; wherein the columns of the matrix are musical key columns and are associated with a group of different musical keys and the rows of the matrix are associated with an ordered set of different chords, wherein each column includes a musical key indicia representing one of the musical keys and primary chord indicia representing primary chords corresponding to the one of the musical keys, wherein the columns are organized so that a pair of columns adjacent to opposite sides of a first musical key column, having a first musical key, include chords of a chord combination corresponding with the first musical key, and wherein the chords of the first column and of the pair of adjacent columns comprise a chord combination for the first musical key; chord position indicia being displayed on the computer and configured to represent a plurality of strings of the musical instrument; finger position indicia being displayed on the computer and positioned relative to the strings of the chord position indicia to display how selected ones of the chords of the chord combinations are to be played; wherein the entire circular matrix is rotated to locate a selected one of the key indicia at a top position of the displayed matrix such that the selected key indicia and a chord combination of chord indicia associated with the selected key indicia are disposed at the top of the displayed matrix to be easily viewed and differentiated from the other chords; and wherein one of the chords of the chord combination associated with the selected key indicia is selected by a user, and displayed on the computer in response to the selecting of one of the chords is a given finger position indicia disposed relative to the chord position indicia to illustrate how to play the selected chord of the selected chord combination.