Adding Chords to songs

Subject: Adding Chords to songs
From: Walter Corey
Date: 30 May 00 - 08:16 PM

This is a format I've been using to type up songs. Bold letters indicate where the chord changes. You could use underlines also. Here is an example:

NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU'RE DOWN AND OUT - (Jimmy Cox)

Once I lived the life of a millionaire (C-E7-A7)
Spending my money, with never a care (Dm-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
Takin' all my friends out for a mighty good time (F-B7-C-A7)
Drinkin' high-priced liquor, champagne and wine; (D7-G7)

Then I began to fall so low; (C-E7-A7)
Didn't have a friend, and no place to go (Dm-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
If I ever get my hands on a dollar again (F-B7-C-A7)
I'm gonna squeeze it, until the eagle grins, cause (D7-G7-C)

Nobody knows you when you're down and out.(C-E7-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
In your pocket, not one penny (F-B7-C-A7)
And your friends you find you haven't any. (D7-G7)

But as soon as you get back on your feet again (C-E7-A7)
Everybody wants to be your long-lost friend (Dm-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
It's mighty strange, without a doubt (F-B7-C-A7)
Nobody knows you when you're down and out.(D7-G7-C)

This involves more HTML coding to set off the bold, but it's not too much more complicated than putting the line breaks in. I don't know whether people would find this less intrusive than embedding the chords right in the line.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From:
Date: 30 May 00 - 08:42 PM

That's actually quite useful. People like me who don't use chords can easily remove them from the end of the line. Looks very nice. Thanks for the suggestion.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: JamesJim
Date: 30 May 00 - 10:59 PM

I like it Walter! And I'll start using it. Makes things a lot more simple. Jim

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: GUEST,Sally
Date: 31 May 00 - 06:23 AM

Brilliant, and still so simple! I can't help wondering why nobody had ever come up with this idea before"

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 May 00 - 06:31 AM

Well, they have in song-books, but not here. Good idea anyway. Takes slightly longer than putting the chords in the text, but avoids the ambiguity with that as to whether the chord change comes after the chord symbol or just before, and looks neater as well. (But is it ok from the DT point of view? Someone please let us know.)

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Mooh
Date: 31 May 00 - 07:32 AM

I like it. Much better than the Rise Up Singing method too. Might be able to use it everywhere. Thanks. Mooh.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Wesley S
Date: 31 May 00 - 10:13 AM

Thankyou Walter - It's a great idea. { dang - I wish I'd thought of it }

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: late 'n short
Date: 31 May 00 - 10:47 AM

Being strictly an amateur, I haven't gotten to the point where I can just "figure out" chords so I need them. This looks like somthing that will work well for me. Now if only more songs in the data base had chords....

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: MMario
Date: 31 May 00 - 10:54 AM

The difficulty of posting chords in lyrics is one of the reasons more of the DT DOESN'T have chords...

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 31 May 00 - 11:19 AM

I see only one small drawback to this method. If you cut and paste from your web browser to a word processor, as I often do, the boldfacing won't survive. (I don't know if this applies to all software. I use Netscape and Microsoft Word.)

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Walter Corey
Date: 31 May 00 - 01:51 PM

It doesn't work in WordPerfect either. That would appear to make this method impractical for DT. There might be ways around it, but I'm not enough of a computer expert to know what they are. The only things I can think of would entail more work than people would probably want to do. I suppose that you could put a special character (like a pound sign or something) in front of each bold letter. This should survive the transfer from website to word processor. Then do some sort of find and replace. That's getting involved, though, and would look pretty strange on the web site. You can view the source code, but I don't know how to copy that and turn it back into a useful form.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: MMario
Date: 31 May 00 - 01:56 PM

It would be an additional series of steps, but you CAN "view source" and do your cut and paste from there. Then it is a simple matter to do a search and replace on the HTML tags.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 04:18 AM

Walter, I copied your first message over to the Mudcat HTML Guide (you'll find links to various guides in the FAQ). This method works great in the Forum, but I can't see it being incororated into the Diital Tradition Database (DT) - the DT is published in various formats, DOS, Mac, Unix, and online - not to mention the Windows Donkeyworks search engine for the DT. All of the song files are text files, with no bold print or other fancy doodads, and most probably they'll stay that way.
If you want to post chords in the Forum, Walter's way works quite nicely, or you can use the <pre> preformat tag explained in the Mudcat HTML Guide. Although it's not best for use, the Rise Up Singing method of showing chords is probably the most practical for the Digital Tradition. [I suppose somebody would like me to explain that method now, but I'll leave that job to somebody else since I'm stuck on WebTV for now.]
Otherwise, you can use something like ABCMUS, which takes the DT tunes and sets chords accoding to the tune - and does a fairly good job of it.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Walter Corey
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 12:09 PM

I certainly agree that this format isn't practical for the database. Since it does work in the forum section, perhaps people submitting songs for inclusion in the DT could, at the end, do just the first verse and chorus (if different)in this sort of fashion. You certainly don't need to chord the whole song. I did it that way because I'm trying to learn the song and it helped to write it out in full.Then whoever is doing the "harvesting" could just make a note that the chording pattern could be found on such and such a thread.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Mark Clark
Date: 01 Jun 00 - 12:38 PM

Walter, I tried out your technique in a post on maj7 chords and it did exactly what I wanted to get across very succinctly. I also turned the chord names into active links that will display the chord diagrams and permit the inquisitive player to hear the chord by clicking on the diagram. The combination allows a lot of information to be published in a dense, easy to use format. I like it very much.

As mentioned above, it doesn't really have application in the D.T. data base but for threads, it's really great.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 12:20 AM

I should add that the standard text method of posting chords seems to work in the database, although there aren't many songs in the database with chords furnished that way. By text version, I mean typing the chords above the words, spacing them where they're supposed to be. That works in the standard DOS version of the database, but I suppose it would cause problems in the online version or Mac or Windows/Donkeywork versions.
But chords are very helpful to a number of people who use the forum, so posting them is a good idea.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 02 Jun 00 - 09:17 PM

G'day,
Here's a variation:-

Once I lived the life of a millionaire (C-E7-A7)
Spending my money, with never a care (Dm-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
Takin' all my friends out for a mighty good time (F-B7-C-A7)
Drinkin' high-priced liquor, champagne and wine; (D7-G7)

All I did was a global 'replace' in a text editor, replacing all < B > with < font color=red > and < /B > with < /font >. You could start by using special characters before and after the letters and then a global search & replace.

e.g. type *O#nce I lived ....
then replace all * with < font color=red >. etc. etc.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: JamesJim
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 12:38 AM

Nice Alan. A good idea made better. Jim

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Brendy
Date: 03 Jun 00 - 01:01 AM

Meant to get in on this one earlier

Well done to Walter, and nice one Alan.
I like the way you can specify the syllable where the chord changes. A difficult thing to do in any format.

B.

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: Genie
Date: 28 Oct 01 - 01:04 PM

Walter, I like the idea a lot, but I have found problems in internet transmission with most formats other than the RUS format, ABC, or word-imbedded chords. Without the somewhat cumbersome HTML maneuvers, formatting (boldface, underscoring, etc.) often gets lost in email or internet posting, and color coding gets lost unless you have your computer set to save color. (When I "saved" this thread in text format, it did not save the color or the boldface.)
I have also found that when chords are placed above the lyrics, they often get moved out of place -- whenever the font or font size is changed, or when sent as an email or posted on the net. It never seems to fail, even when I use the "

, 

" commands.

Although it may look silly, you could put a word (or syllable) in all caps if that is where the chord change happens. e.g.,

NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU'RE DOWN AND OUT - (Jimmy Cox)

ONCE I lived the LIFE of a MILLionaire (C-E7-A7) SPENDing my MONey, with NEVer A CARE (Dm-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
etc.

Admittedly, this method would not work too well in a song that has a lot of chord changes within words, though.

An alternative would be to put a bullet where the chord changes go, e.g.,

NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU'RE DOWN AND OUT - (Jimmy Cox)

•Once I lived the •life of a •millionaire (C-E7-A7) •Spending my •money, with •never •a •care (Dm-A7-Dm-A7-Dm)
etc.
Once the text is downloaded and put into a word processing format such as MS Word, it's easy to get rid of the bullets using the "replace" command. (This is easier than it is to replace chord symbols with that command.)

These are just a couple of other possible methods.

Genie

Subject: RE: Adding Chords to songs
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Oct 01 - 11:13 PM

Particularly in jazz songs, people sing syllables slightly before or after the chord changes--another problem is that, except for when there is a chord change, Walter's technique does not make it clear where the beats of the measure fall, so you can't really tell, without experimenting, whether it there is one count between chord changes, or there is are four, or even eight--

I will never understand why you folks are so completely resistant to the chord charting system that Jazz players have used for years, which simply is to use slash marks, showing two chords per measure(first and third count)whether there is a change or not, so you can simply look at the chart and play, whether you know the tune or not--

|CE7/A7A7/FA7/DmDm/
FB7/CA7/D7D7/DmG7

If you know the melody, you can sing it or play it over the chords, and if you don't, nothing will help you, outside of the music, anyway--