Is there a doctor in the house?

I'd had a moment of weakness during last night's stint, playing bass in a bar band. This band was a little unorthodox—no rehearsals, no set-list. Just flying through the bar by the seat of my pants. I was relying on my ear, which turned out to be a pretty reliable activity.

Then comes along Bob Seger's "Night Moves". I knew this tune, but I really didn't want to mess it up. I discretely grabbed my phone and pulled up a chord chart that someone had made for it. I followed it as the band played the tune. We reached the first chorus, and lo and below: the chart was wrong. It sounded awful. I shook my head. I felt like such a jerk. Why couldn't I have just trusted my ear? I would've been fine.

On the bus ride home, I thought about how professional players don't just have a great ear—they have great faith in their ear, too. They're not only responsive, but confident about their responsiveness.

There are many applications out in the world that train that sort of thing (and you could always just play along to the radio for hours), but I wanted more. I wanted something that straddled the line between clinical and fun.

Enter Dr. Bossa: just what the doctor ordered.

This is a simple application that just randomly grabs minor seventh chords and plays them over a somewhat pleasant backing track. I sequenced the track in Ableton Live Intro 11. It's not my best work (I used a few stock instruments of dubious quality), but I think that it gets the job done.

How do I use Dr. Bossa? I grab a guitar and start playing along. Once I'm feeling confident, I hit that "HIDE CHORD" button and start using my ear to the best of my ability. It gets easier as time goes on.

I would've loved to make it so you can select different chord qualities, adjust the tempo, maybe even decide how many bars each chord lasts—but that'd take a long time, and I really wanted to reach a finishing point within a single sitting. He's not the world's most thorough doctor, but he gets the job done. Besides, look at famous modal jazz standards such as "Impressions" or "So What"—you can get a lot done with just a handful of minor seventh chords!

As far as technical matters go, Dr. Bossa could use a bit of an audio buffer down the line. He calculates the next random chord as soon as it's called for, which isn't exactly the best way to do things. This is what causes the audio to sometimes stutter at the beginning of a new chord. If I was smarter, I'd make it so that the following chord is decided while the current chord is still playing... but that would take some troubleshooting. And, once again, I really just wanted to try and finish this in one sitting.

Without further ado... Dr. Bossa! Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy your stay.