Guys, I'm looking for a utility that tells me the name of any chord, which I enter by clicking the keys on a graphical keyboard. Preferably a piece of software I can download, rather than online utilities. Any recommendations?

Google's your friend. :D . :cool:

Sorry, and I hope you find some. There sure seems to be a boatload of guitar chord software. (OT) I've got a 'chart' with keyboard chords, let me see if I can find the link. :cool:

I'm not an expert on music theory but I think part of the problem is that any given set of keys notes may be interpreted as more than one chord, depending (I think) on what key signature you're working in.

One tricky part, as Larry pointed out the in the concept of naming "slash chords" is that the naming becomes a little arbitrary. Say for instance I voice a B D F# around middle C. That in and of itself is a B minor triad. But if I play a G bass note, I can call it Bm/G, or I could call it G Major7. Switch the bass note to E and it's either Bm/E or Em9 or even E9 depending on how you imply the missing third (G - or G#). Fun and tricky thing, this chord identification...

I have a freeware program called ScaleIt4 that does exactly what you want. It has a large database of chords and scales and shows you all the chords and scales that match your notes. It's gone from the internet for years but I see no problem in putting it on some download location as the license does not forbid distribution (iirc). EDIT: seems I found a download for it:

The vst host: Minihost by Tobybear will do this. It is donationware. Go to the MIDI options and choose Show Midi Tools and it will recognize the chords you play from your MIDI keyboard. rod

Technogremlin and rstpierre - many thanks for your recommendations, however unfortunately the tobybear site is offline, and scale4it does not seem to work with Win 7 x64! My search continues...

Anyone got an updated recommendation for this? Like Logic's chord tool in the transport bar showing the current chord...

I use this. The PizMiDI plugs are awesome.