Inline chords
peter 3.5.2 (7522) on iPhone 8 iOS 15.3
Here's my lyric data for you to simulate:
[00:01.00]Against All Odds - Phil Collins (1984)
[00:03.77]INTRO [Am7]--------[D]--------[Am7]--------[D]
VERSE 1
[00:07.98][Em] How can I just let you [Dmaj7] walk away
[00:12.01]Just let you [G] leave without a [Am7] trace,
[00:15.59]When I [C] stand here taking [D] every breath
[00:20.05]with [Bm] you, ooh [Em].
[00:23.75]You're the [Am] only one
[00:26.35]who really knew me at [D] all.
Damir I could fiddle around with the lyric settings for each song, but it will just take a lot of time. The problem is that I use my old iPad Air 2 for backtracks with the iPhone mainly used as a backup. Everything fits fine on iPad without any text wrapping so normally with chords above it will work. The other day I had to use my iPhone when doing a demo gig. I mostly turned it to landscape to get things to fit, in which case there isn't room for much more than one or two lines of lyrics if the chords are above, but with just keeping chords inline with lyrics I don't have to worry about possible problems, and I can see a lot more lines in the limited space. In the case of the screenshot, it didn't even occur to me that the (Am7) was in the wrong place until I had already posted it—that could happen at a gig!! Rather not take the chance.
MasterAnt Thanks, your problem lies in the whitespace characters after each chord. Each inline chord is attached to the next character following that chord. In your example it is always a whitespace. Whitespaces are also used to create line breaks. So your lyrics will break over to the new line at the whitespace the chord is attached to which leads to these problems you see.
If you write it like this, the chord placement will be correct:
[00:07.98][Em]How can I just let you [Dmaj7]walk away
[00:12.01]Just let you [G]leave without a [Am7]trace,
[00:15.59]When I [C]stand here taking [D]every breath
[00:20.05]with [Bm]you, ooh[Em].
[00:23.75]You're the [Am]only one
[00:26.35]who really knew me at [D]all.peter Thanks for pointing that out.
Okay so I have correct placement as well as a comparison between the two proposed formats attached. I'd like to retain my advocation of the inline chords format as an option. and hope you'll consider it in some future update. [Probably, the inline format should show the square brackets.]
and
versus
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MasterAnt
I can certainly get use to the in line chord changes when colour is introduced, and i can see another great benefit, when entering timecode you only need to deal with one line at a time this means no need to stop to jump a lyrics line then start again to continue to enter timecode for each line in this stop start fashion, it would be much faster, as you read the lyrics the chords are smack in your face at the right time and on the same line all you have to do is adjust your brain to skip over the coloured parts where the chords are.
I will definitely try this and see if it works faster to program and easy to use.
I like the chords above, but not the way i have to edit it to achieve a good result, and then this result can be spoiled if i zoom in too much.
Thanks MasterAnt i will try your aproach and see if it works for me better.
Damir Unfortunately it's painful to go with the way demonstrated while it has to be done manually, but it's worth trying out on a song to see how it feels to play along with on various devices. On an iPhone, it really makes sense. Transposing chords sadly doesn't work, and entering the colour codes would be too time-consuming unless you could do some sort of batch editing. (I can because of the program I made to keep my old and new format in sync where the lyrics are in separate files.) Sure, on a large-screened iPad having the chords above might not be as much of an issue, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who uses an iPhone at times.
I can't say I've fully decided how I'm going to go forward while functionality remains as is. In the short term, I'll probably stick to things as I have them—white chords in parentheses.
MasterAnt i can totally see your dillemma, heres an example i have created to show the two systems and the advantages and disadvantages.
Basically your in line system is easier to enter time code as you dont have to stop/start to reposition to a correct line, it is better on small screens, once you get use to it if it had colour chords that were simpler to create it would be easier to distinguish between lyrics/chords, transpose chords facility is missing, but the chords are on the same line meaning your eyes dont have to jump up to see the chords you just keep the same line of sight and filter out the colour chords and only sing the more bright white text lyrics, this has got a lot of advantages, the disadvantages it looks messy especially if no colour difference is present you have to enter brackets around the chords but you dont get any advantages for doing this, no easy colour choice, no transposition to chords, so not very practical as is.
The chords above system works well but is very time consuming to create, advantages are once you spend the time to create it, it looks neater and has colour chords with highlighted different colour for now active line chords so you can see two different colours for chords, it also pitch shifts the chords nice but not as easy as it should be.
Disadvantages are it hogs a smaller screen device , it is more awkward to enter timecode having to stop/ start all the time, it does not wrap around both lyrics and chords when zooming in to get larger font.
First example shows how bland the in line chords are.
Second example shows the chords above as it is now, if you could make both systems be simply switched between the two and all the problems were fixed it would be very usable for all.
I find it very annoying that some chord lines are not coloured because there is a (required) character included. I often use characters in chord lines such as ~ to signify a repeated bar or ^ to remind me that the melody line goes up… I don’t want these instructions within the lyrics because they are as relevant to the music as the chords. Even important words such as ‘hold’ or ‘sustain’ or ‘to end’ spoil the colour and these are not unreasonable commands, especially for other musicians when I’m hosting sessions. For what it’s worth all lyrics are formatted before adding, I don’t use square brackets at all as I don’t get on with them (on over 800 songs).
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JonathanS hi Peter and Jonathan, perhaps to force whatever you put in to brackets on that chord line to be considered as a chord and ignored by the pitch shift.
So only proper chords get treated as normal but the (STOP) IS IGNORED BY THIS LINE,
anything in brackets can be entered but ignored by the chord line and pitch shift.
Would this work or is it asking too much of the apple man.
And is that the sort of thing most users would find a use for?
I normally just use the lyrics line and insert in brackets what i need to identify a command.
I leave the chords line alone as it doasnt like foreign matter.
Example
D E7 (STOP)
Love me tender, love me sweet (STOP)
Never let me grow
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peter hi Peter and Master Ant, i have just played around a bit again and i think there might be a simple solution to your dillemma if genius Peter can make it happen.
It would involve a selection option in settings to keep the square bracketed chords entered visualy in the same lyrics line without creating a chords line or if selected opposite to lift the chords in to the line above, if possible this would give everyone a simple toggle switch option between the two preferred options and the colour schemes would remain the same , the pitch shift remains untouched all Peter has to do is figure out how to do this seemingly simple request yet possably ridiculously complicated programming task to achieve a happy ending.
I also think if possible anything within round brackets in the chords line should be ignored by the chords line and act like a notice note.
I dont need it but it sounds like others might find it usefull. Any thoughts anyone?
The inline operation would definitely be better for small screen devices.
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Damir This is exactly what I was and am still hoping for. Just a global settings switch to toggle having the chords on the same line or above. I use regular brackets for other info too, not just chords; things such as this:
[00:07:708]Well, shake it up, baby, now, (shake it up, baby)
So I'd like these "notes" to continue to be treated just as text, and I'm happy to change all my chords to square brackets, but I'd like them shown on the same line.
JonathanS: Yup, there's more to singing than just reading lyrics: Eg.
[01:21:766]Lay down your money \and you \play /your part
[01:25:678]Everybody's got a hu-u-//ungry heart
.
.
BRIDGE
[01:22:589]Ahhhhhhhhhh (root)
[01:25:633]Ahhhhhhhhhh (third)
[01:27:804]Ahhhhhhhhhh (fifth)
[01:29:978]Ahhhhhhhhhhh (seventh)
[01:31:611] (breath) Ahhhhh Ahhhhh Woah, Yeah
I could add an option to keep chords in the same line with lyrics but that will break my color highlighting. Chord highlighting can only work on a whole line. Changing that to being able to highlight only parts of a line would mean major work on the whole rendering engine which is quite complicated as it is.
I will think about it. Maybe I will have an idea, but currently I don't think this is doable with a limited amount of work.
I’m sure a previous Windows program I used allowed quotation marks inside square brackets to show instructions etc. along with inline chords, but as I don’t use inline chords this wouldn’t help me.