The mode 'tools' offers some non-interactive but useful utilities, which are mostly related to basic harmonica theory; they do not use microphone or speaker.

The required additional argument specifies the tool to run; it can be one of:

• transpose: transpose a sequence of holes between keys
• shift: shift a sequence of holes or notes or a single lick by the given number of semitones (first argument)
• shift-to-groups: Starts off like 'shift' (see there), but also shows groups of alternative holes, that give the same note only in different octaves. This can be useful to find variations of a hole-sequences, e.g. for improvisation

• keys: For a diatonic harmonica: print a chart with keys and positions centered around current key; this tool accepts two optional extra arguments, which control coloured emphasis in the otherwise fixed chart. The first argument is the key of the song, the second the key of the harp; use '.' to skip emphasising the song.

  Use option –brief to print a version shortend to the most common keys and position.

• spread-notes: take a list of notes (e.g. a, a4, b, cs) as arguments and turn them into a list of holes that produce them. As the octave is deliberately not taken into account, you may give "a" as an argument just as well as "a4". Also shows these holes in the harmonica chart. When invoked with option –brief, this tool can be used as a subcommand on the commandline, in which case it just returns the list of holes, to be used e.g. as an adhoc-scale.
• make-scale: accepts a list of holes on the commandline, asks some additional questions and writes a new user-defined scale.
• chart: various harmonica charts for current key; add option –ref for more charts. If you supply holes or notes as arguments (optional), only these are printed in the chart of holes and the other charts are skipped.
• notes-major, notes: print notes of major scale for given key
• progression, prog: take a base and some semitone diffs, then spell them out
• interval, inter: calculate and print interval between two notes
• chords: print chords i, iv and v for current key
• transcribe: transcribe given audio-file approximately
• search-holes-in-licks: search given sequence of holes (or equiv) in all licks; the same ordering of holes is required; this can help to find licks that expand on a given sequence of holes
• search-lick-in-scales: search given lick or sequence of holes (or equiv) in all scales; ordering of holes is not important; this may give an idea, to which of all scales a given lick can be played. See also the somewhat inverse tool search-scale-in-licks.
• search-scale-in-licks: search given scale in all licks; this computes the uniq holes of a lick and, taking away 0,1,2 … holes, checks if the remaining holes are contained in the scale. This can give an idea, which licks can be played over the given scale (e.g. chord-iv). See also the very similar tool licks-from-scale and the somewhat inverse search-lick-in-scales.
• licks-from-scale: For all licks, find percentage of holes, that are taken from the given scale and group and sort them accordingly. This may give an idea, which of all licks can be played over the given scale (e.g. chord-i or blues). See also the very similar tool seach-scale-in-licks.
• translate: Recognize and translate alternate harmonica notations into the format required for harpwise; e.g. turn "2 (2) 3" into "+2 -2 +3"; Currently this is optimized for diatonic harmonicas.
• utils, utilities: Describe some utilities, that come with harpwise and need to be invoked seperately.
• edit, edit-licks: invoke editor on your lickfile optionally add name of lick or lick-progression to land on
• edit-config: invoke editor on your personal config file ~/harpwise/config.ini
• edit-jam: edit given jamming-file. This is much like "harpwise jam edit", which however has a more relaxed way of specifying the jam. See there for details.
• diag, diag1: help to diagnose problems with your sound system; i.e. check that recording and replay work properly.
• diag2: check that mp3 can be played without problems.
• diag3: check that frequencies picked up by your microphone can be recognized properly; for this the check 'diag1' should have been performed sucessfully first.
• diag-hints: read technical hints on how to fix some of the problems, that might have come up with the other diag-tools.

Transpose a sequence of notes (some specified as holes) from the key of c to g (keeping the notes/pitches constant):

harpwise tools transpose c g -1 +2 -3

when playing the result on the g-harp you will have the exact same pitches as on the original c-harp.

Shift a sequence of holes up 12 semitones:

harpwise tools shift 12st -1 +2 -3

This is different from transposing the notes/pitches as given before, as it changes the pitches of the notes.

You may then let harpwise play the resulting notes, even if they have no hole on the harp (with mode play)

Print a simple table of keys and positions:

harpwise tools keys

Center the semitone-column around a specific key of harp (bf) and mark it in the table:

harpwise tools keys bf

The same and mark a key of song (d) too:

harpwise tools keys bf d

If you have a g-harp and want to know what song-keys and positions are available:

harpwise tools keys g g

Print a harmonica chart for the key of g:

harpwise tools chart g

The same chart, but with arguments rearranged

harpwise tools g chart

Two charts, the second with scale-content (chord-i)

harpwise tools g chord-i chart --add-scales -

Four charts, the third and fourth with intervals of each hole to the given reference:

harpwise tools chord-i chart --ref -4

How to get the holes of the pentatonic scale in an adhoc fashion:

Assuming, that you know its notes g a b d e:

harpwise tools spread-notes g a b d e

the resulting long list of 16 holes may then be used as an adhoc scale for mode listen.

Advanced users, that are not satisfied with the builtin set of scales, may want to create their own from a list of holes, e.g.:

harpwise tools make-scale +1 +2 +3

The notes of the major scale starting at c:

harpwise tools notes c

this also gives the notes of the major scale one fifth down, i.e. starting at f, so that you may follow the circle of fifths in both directions if you wish.

Print a note progression:

harpwise tools prog e3 7st 9st oct

which will give you all the notes starting at e3 and the 7, 9, 12 semitones up.

Print the interval over the base note:

harpwise tools interval c4 oct

harpwise tools interval c4 +12st

print the chords i, iv and v for the current key:

harpwise tools chords

Transcribe and audio-file given on the commandline approximately:

harpwise tools transcribe wade.mp3

for simple harmonica content this will give you sequence of holes played in lick wade.mp3 (from current working dir)