Page Fright

How do you get a guitar player to be quiet? Put sheet music in front of them.

Endless guitar sight-reading exercises. Each one is 16 measures in 4/4 (quarter notes in C major to start), covering the whole guitar range: low E (open 6th string) up to C on the 1st string's 20th fret (written C7, above the 5th ledger line). Written in treble clef, which sounds an octave lower on guitar.

Live app: https://www.davyrockett.com/page-fright/ It runs as an app on iPhone and iPad Home Screens and the Mac's Dock, and works with no signal once installed.

What's in here

File	What it does
index.html	The whole app: exercise generator, notation, playback, settings
drill.js	The Drill section: triad shapes on any three strings
chords.js	Drill > Chords: shapes from David's two chord books (plus major and open chords) for 32 chord types, moved to any root
warmup.js	Drill > Warm-up: Robb Cappelletto's six-position scale routine, one key a day
pedal.js	Page-turner pedal: left and right pedals (and holding right) in every section
licks.js	Improv licks: 1–50 from David's lick sheet plus 13 standard ones, written in A (format explained at the top of the file)
improv.js	The Improv section: 12-bar blues backing track and scale shapes on the fretboard
vendor/vexflow-bravura.js	VexFlow 4.2.5, which draws the notation (MIT license, see vendor/VEXFLOW-LICENSE)
sw.js	The "service worker": saves the app on the device so it works offline
manifest.webmanifest	Tells the device the app's name, icon, and to open full-screen
icons/	App icons: an orange eighth note and an exclamation mark (redraw with python3 tools/make-icons.py; icon-maskable-512.png is a smaller copy for Android's circle crop)
Start Page Fright.command	Double-click to run a local test copy on this Mac (port 8769)

Using it

• New exercise (or press N) makes a fresh 16 measures. The current one is remembered on the device.
• Play (or space) counts in one measure, then plays it at guitar pitch and highlights each note.
• Non-stop (beside Subdivide): when an exercise ends, a new one with the same settings takes its place and plays after a 4-beat count-in, in time, until you press Stop. It's also with the floating buttons at the bottom right.
• The line under the title (key · rhythm · notes · positions): tap any part to change just that, in a small pop-up.
• Tap any note to hear it.
• Tab (button by Play, or press T) shows or hides guitar tab under the staff, any time, even while playing. Fingerings are worked out for the whole exercise at once (fewest, smallest hand shifts; stays in the chosen positions; on the whole neck it settles around 5th position and prefers fretted notes to open strings; avoids high frets on the thick strings). See fingering() in index.html.
• Customize limits the notes to one or more positions (1st, 5th, 9th, 12th), so every note can be played without leaving them. 1st position is open strings to fret 4; the others are 4 frets starting at that fret, plus the index finger's reach back one fret (e.g. in 5th position: B on the G string's 4th fret, and the low G♯ on the low E string's 4th fret). Choosing several combines their ranges.
• Key (in Customize): C, G, D, A, E, F, B♭, E♭, A♭ major. Choose several and each exercise picks one. Only notes in the key are used; it starts and ends on the home note.
• Rhythm (in Customize): any mix of whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes, plus Dotted and Rests. Measures are built from common one- and two-beat patterns (two-beat ones start on beat 1 or 3), and eighths/sixteenths are beamed by the beat.
• Notes (in Customize): single notes, double stops and/or triple stops. Intervals (2nds to octaves, default 3rds and 5ths) sets the double stops; triple stops stack two of them (3rds + 3rds make a triad). Each exercise ends on the key's I chord, sized to the notes chosen: the home note (single notes), two notes of the chord (double stops) or the whole triad in any order (triple stops). Chords are on neighboring strings (double stops may skip one) and are checked to be playable in the chosen positions (or within a 5-fret stretch on the whole neck). The diminished 5th is left out.
• Accidentals (in Customize, under Key): some notes become sharps, flats or naturals outside the key, each leading by a half step into the next note.

Improv

The Read | Improv switch under the header changes sections (#improv links straight to Improv).

• Backing track: 12-bar blues in any key, made live in the browser (drums, a soft boogie bass, and short organ chords on 1 and the "and" of 2). Tempo, shuffle or straight, and quick change (IV in bar 2). Counts in one bar, then loops. Other tracks: Major I–IV, Minor vamp and Major vamp (a mellow, sparse two-bar groove on the home minor or major triad, no 7th: soft kick, brushes, held bass, electric piano struck once per loop), and Drone.
• Fretboard (frets 0–17): minor pentatonic, blues scale, minor scale, major pentatonic, major scale, or the CAGED chord shapes for the key. Full-scale shapes are the pentatonic box plus the two missing notes (4 & 7 major; 2 & ♭6 minor). Show all shapes or pick one or more (named E, D, C, A, G for the chord shape each sits around). Dots show intervals or note names; roots are orange. Chord tones rings the notes of the chord being played while the track runs, and shows chord tones the scale lacks (e.g. the IV chord's major 3rd over minor pentatonic) as hollow blue dots labeled R/3/5/♭7. Tap I/IV/V beside Chord tones to preview a chord's tones any time; the chord being played is outlined.
• Licks: 63 blues licks in licks.js, written in A in a tab-like text format (explained at the top of the file) and moved to any key: 1–50 from David's A blues lick sheet (numbered as on the sheet), 51–63 standard licks Claude added. The list groups them by where they sit on the neck; ‹ › step through. The lick's notes are marked on the fretboard with the scale's labels, and it's written out under the fretboard in notation and tab (VexFlow) with bends, H/P/RB arcs, slides, rakes and vibrato. Hear it plays it with hammer-ons, slides and bends sounding legato (on the next bar, in time, if the band is playing); Half speed slows it down.

Drill

The first section of the Drill | Improv | Read switch (#drill links straight to it). It starts with triads: pick a root and quality (major, minor, diminished, augmented) and up to three strings (with one or two it shows where the chord's notes fall on them). The fretboard shows every playable shape of that triad on those strings, frets 0–17, joined by a line coloured by inversion (blue root position, green 1st, purple 2nd; each can be turned off). Note names are spelled from the root (C minor = C–E♭–G). Under the fretboard, each shape is also written as a stacked whole-note chord (guitar pitch, spelled from the root, coloured by inversion), lined up under its shape. Tap a shape's line or its chord to hear it; Play strums every shape up the neck.

Chords (the second Drill mode): pick a root and a chord type: triads and sus (major, m, +, °, sus2, sus4; the open "cowboy" chords show in their own keys), sixths and added notes (6, m6, 6/9, add9, m(add9)), sevenths (maj7, 7, m7, m7(add4), m7♭5, °7, m(maj7), 7sus4), extended (maj9, 9, m9, 11, m11, 13, maj7♯11) and altered dominants (7♭5, 7♯11, 7♯9, 7♯5, 7(♭9,♭13), 7♭5(♭9), 7♭5(♯9), 7♯5(♭9)). The shapes come from David's two chord books (the jazz chord book, then a photo chord book; written in C in chords.js, with the books' fingering) and are moved to the chosen root, as low on the neck as they fit (up to the 15th fret). One is shown in colour with the others greyed out, each written as a chord underneath. Rootless shapes show the implied root as a dashed circle. Tap one to hear and highlight it; Play steps through them.

Shells (the third Drill mode): three-note shell chords (root, 3rd and 7th, or 6th; no 5th) for maj7, 7, m7, m7♭5, °7 and 6: every arrangement of the three notes (any of them in the bass) on three neighbouring strings (no skipped strings), plus extended shells with no root (3rd, 7th and a 9th, 11th, 13th or altered note). Same screen as Chords.

Warm-up (the fourth Drill mode): Robb Cappelletto's daily scale routine (Billy Strings' teacher, from Fret Science's video youtu.be/MY1F4-id64k). One major key a day, moving around the circle of fifths after each day it's played. Six positions that cover the neck, lowest first: root on the low E string and on the A string, each played behind the root (4th finger on the root), straddling it (2nd finger) and in front of it with three notes per string (1st finger). In each position: scale, major pentatonic, major arpeggio (18 steps). Play counts in a bar, then plays the step up and back down in 8ths, lighting each note on the fretboard (no notation or tab: David's call). Non-stop runs straight through all 18 steps with a bar of clicks between them.

Publishing a change

1. Edit the files.
2. Run tools/bump.sh to bump the version (it updates sw.js and the version shown in Settings). Without this, devices keep the old copy.
3. Commit and push (git add -A && git commit -m "…" && git push).
4. GitHub Pages updates within a minute or two. Settings → Check for updates forces it on a device.

Old address

The app used to be called Sight Reading, at https://www.davyrockett.com/sight-reading/. That address now forwards here (repo davyrockett/sight-reading, local folder ../sight-reading-redirect). Settings carry over because both addresses are on the same site (localStorage keys start with sr.).

Ideas for later

Minor keys; triplets, ties and syncopation; more chord types; more positions; 8va for the highest notes.