As you can see this is an old subject, but I'd like to make a pitch to standardise the chord format used for new submissions to Mudcat.

My suggestion is:

- Include the chord names in the same line as the lyrics text
- Use square [ ] brackets.
- Do not leave any space between the closing square bracket and the following syllable of the lyrics.
- Where a chord applies to the entire word, the chord name in square brackets should appear immediately before the first syllable, not within the syllable.
- Where a chord applies to only part of the word it should be placed in front of the relevant syllable of the lyrics.
- Where a chord appears in the middle of a word the square brackets should be prededed by a space.
- Where there are successive chords- with no aligned lyrics, they should be butted together and in turn abutt the next lyric syllable.


Why follow this convention?

- It's easy to write using any text editor, with just a few simple syntax rules.
- It's easy to read and unambiguous for any type font or page size.
- It can never get chords out of alignment with lyrics - which is so easy to do with chords on the line above the lyrics.
- ChordPro software (and similar) uses this format and furthermore allows users to print output in alternative formats (including above the lyrics) plus it allows robust transposition of the chords.
- Pavane's HARMONY program now uses this format. For a number of users this will mean that creating music files with aligned lyrics will make life a lot easier to submit tunes to the Digital Tradition.
- While the abuttment of chords and lyrics is not necessary for HARMONY, it will allow the importing of lyrics into NoteWorthy Composer and a variety of ABC utilities without losing alignment. Typically the presence of a space in lyrics represents a new syllable

I enjoy a lot of the spirit of anarchy at Mudcat, but would recommend the adoption of a common convention for chords and lyrics.

If some modicum of consensus is reached then perhaps Joe could ultimately include such details in the Mudcat Guide.