What's New

New tools, instruments and improvements are constantly being added to Manouke. Here you can see the most important changes without digging through technical patch notes.

← Back to Manouke

August 2026

Instruments, smarter chords and a much more powerful rhythm system.

✨ Major updates

🎸 More instruments

New

Manouke now works across guitar, ukulele, cavaquinho and piano. Switch instruments while keeping the same song and harmony.

Guitar Ukulele Cavaquinho Piano

🔧 Instrument Tunings

New

Chord positions can now respect the actual tuning of the selected instrument instead of relying on one fixed tuning.

🔄 Better Instrument Conversion

Improved

Chord conversion between instruments has been rebuilt to work with the notes inside the chord, producing much more useful positions.

🪶 Easy Chords

New

Difficult chord shape? Manouke can help you find easier playable alternatives instead of forcing one fixed position.

🧠 Easy Harmonize

New

Explore a simpler version of difficult harmony without having to rebuild the whole progression manually.

🎶 Manouche Chords

New

Chord searches can now focus on voicings suited to gypsy jazz and manouche playing.

📍 Better Fretboard Search

Improved

Alternative chord positions are no longer limited mainly to open shapes and the first few frets. Higher positions can be explored as well.

🥁 Rhythm tools

🥁 Rhythm Reader & Editor

Major update

The Manouke rhythm system has been expanded far beyond simple up and down strokes. Rhythm patterns can now describe much more detailed musical timing and notation.

Accents Tuplets Dotted Notes Pickups Note Values Tempo

▶ Rhythm Playback

Improved

Rhythm patterns can be played back, making them useful for listening and practice rather than only visual notation.

⏱ Tempo

New

Rhythm and grille data can now include tempo, preparing Manouke for more interactive practice tools.

🎓 Discover & learn

👤 Artists

New

Manouke now has dedicated artist pages connecting composers, lyricists, arrangers, musicians and groups with the songs in the library.

📘 Manouche Dictionary

New

Explore words and expressions connected with gypsy jazz, musicians and manouche culture.

🎮 Time Signature Game

New

A small music game for testing how quickly you can recognise different time signatures.

🏆 Leaderboard

New

Game scores can be compared on a leaderboard, giving you something to beat next time.

🔨 More improvements
🎵 Better chord organisation — chord browsing has been improved by root and chord type, making larger chord libraries easier to navigate.
🎼 Richer song credits — the song database is being expanded to better separate composers, lyricists, arrangers and performers.
⭐ Featured and Django-related information — songs and grilles can carry additional information that makes important versions easier to discover.
🧭 Navigation improvements — Manouke is gradually being reorganised as more tools become part of the application.
⚙ Behind the scenes
⚙ Improvements to application routing and internal page structure.
🔎 Search-engine indexing and sitemap improvements.
🗃 Database structure is being expanded to support richer relationships between songs, artists, chords, instruments and rhythms.

What's next?

Manouke is continuing to grow from a grille library into a set of practical tools for playing, adapting and practising music. Some of the next ideas build directly on the new chord and rhythm systems.

Rhythm Trainer Better Practice Tools Smarter Chord Paths Bass Lines Backing Tracks
Manouke is built step by step.
The goal stays the same: less time searching, rewriting and converting music — and more time playing it.