Hi all, I'm looking for software that displays music in the form of "chords over lyrics" - the kind typically found in Ultimate Guitar and used by Songbook pro), and also prompts and highlights the lyrics synced with the song - like an LRC file.
You can also think of it as the Apple synched lyrics but with the chords on top.
I used to memorize words to a song and chords later, but my current thought is it would be easier to see and memorize both at the same time. Yeah - you can just display the chord chart with lyrics, but then you don't hear the music (out loud, at least). And memorizing the sound/feel of the song is also important.
[Intro] Am D7 G La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, la, la C F La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, la, la Dm E Esus4 E La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, la, la-la, la
[Verse 1] Am D7 G Now that I’ve lost everything to you C F You say you wanna start something new
Ahh - it loses the correct chord positioning with respect to the words, but this is the format I'm talking about. The standard apple lyrics playback, or general LRC files are exactly what I'm looking for, but with the chords on top of the correct words, and a view that allows complete verses and choruses to be displayed on one screen so I can really see the whole progression on one page.
I believe that you are looking for OpenSong freeware. Half the members of my praise bands can't read music so I investigated this but found it faster just to type those charts up in Word.
Quote
Ahh - it loses the correct chord positioning with respect to the words, but this is the format I'm talking about.
Hint: by using mono-spaced fonts (all Courier typefaces and a few others), any changes in resolution will preserve spacing.
There's also this guy trying to reinvent that wheel: ChordsOverLyrics
BIAB 2026 Audiophile Mac 24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 & M5 MBAir, 2012 MBP Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScore/Notion/Overture
Brian, Mike - do those play the mp3 (or backing tracks) after opening the file - that's what I'm looking for. Plenty of software lets you enter and manage the music, but I would like the song to be played (and auto scrolling done so you don't have to change pages) as the song or backing track is playing.
I find Songbook Pro has a recent feature that allows this, but it's a little difficult for me to load it up. And you have to enter all the songs first. One incredible feature of Songbook pro is it lets you search for the chord/lyrics files from Ultimate-Guitar, which has almost all of them already entered....much better than OnSong from what I've heard of it.
Just drop the file into SMP and it will analyze the song for the chord structure. You can have it play from from the tracks (mixer), chord table or the Song Sheet View (similar to what is asked for above) Song Sheet View
It rolls ie follows the song as it plays no need to change the pages.
It can search and download Lyrics from the web.
Importing Lyrics ...... "Lyrics come in two flavors: synchronized and unsynchronized. Synchronized lyrics have a timestamp associated with each line of the lyric that is used to match it to the time the lyric is sung in the song. Unsynchronized lyrics are just the text (they don't have a timestamp). Song Master works with both types, however, of the two, synchronized lyric format is preferred"....
It seems to work smoothly as long as it can find synchronized tabs for the song otherwise one need to manually line up the lyrics or if not found at all manually enter the lyrics and line it up.
They have trail versions just do download and check it out. SongMaster Pro
BIAB 2026, Studio Pro 8, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
Well - thanks for your replies - in addition to Songbook pro doing this, so it seems OnSong and Songmaster Pro can do this. But I think OnSong and Songbook run on phones and ipads, which is more convenient. And Songbook is way less expensive. Does BB or RB do this well and could replace the function of these apps ?
Is anyone using any of these apps with backing tracks and autoscrolling of the chord sheets for live performance ?
Now - I don't get paid to perform, and though I would prefer to have all my songs memorized, I often forget a chord here and there. That's a stress I don't need in my life lol These apps are really great
Regardless of whether you use these for liver performance, what a wonderful tool for sharing music with the other members of your band during rehearsals and introducing new songs. Believe it or not, easily sharing music with others has always been an obstacle for me. I tend to have one printed chord sheet page for each song with lots of highlights and markups that nobody else could read lol
Hi Why dont you just use BIAB with lyrics and export a video? I export my songs as a video and then use VLC on my iPad to play the video. Just be aware that BIAB video export creates a very big file so I usually convert to mp4 before uploading to my iPad. I have loads of ready made backing tracks here https://band-in-a-box-files.com/
[vide:youtube]He Aint Heavy He's My Brother: A Fun and Easy Band-in-a-Box play along with chords anf lyrics [/video]
Hi Why dont you just use BIAB with lyrics and export a video? …
That.
If mp4 export gives you files that are too large, there are apps for Windows that can make them smaller. Quicktime does this as well and is part of the macOS.
BIAB 2026 Audiophile Mac 24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 & M5 MBAir, 2012 MBP Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScore/Notion/Overture
Why dont you just use BIAB with lyrics and export a video?
Thank you Joanne - for the suggestion and backing tracks.
I realize that I have a LOT of trouble memorizing lyrics to entire songs, and I need a format where I can easily see the words that rhyme underneath each other, bars that match the musical structure, and lyrics that show the 'pauses' by the way they are placed on different lines.
While I don't object to reading from an ipad during performance, I do have the goal to commit as many to memory as possible - and the format I described is much more friendly to my memorizing process.
Hi Joe I play at a farmers market every Saturday and have over 150 videos on my iPad.
Personally I don’t try and memorize all the lyrics and chords. I simply enjoy playing (using the video with backtrack and lyrics). I have found that the iPad is very unobtrusive and after playing a particular song a few times I really just need to glance at the chords.
I always add at least two new songs every week and the first time I play a song it is always a bit shaky. But the more I play it, obviously, the easier it gets. For example, on Saturday I tried playing “Gentle on mind” which has quite easy chords but lots of lyrics in quite interesting places. So it was not good, but if I simply play along with the videos at home first it gets infinitely better when I next try to play it at the market.
It has done wonders for my sense of timing. People don’t even know I have scrolling chords and lyrics as my iPad is off to the side.
Hi Joe I have a love/hate relationship with my acoustic guitar. Recently I have started playing bass with my backing tracks and I much prefer it. I think it gives the backing track more "space" to fill in the wonderful guitar realtracks which I have no hope of ever replicating. So I think bass is my new instrument of choice.
That said, there is nothing (now) that I battle to play on bass with the scrolling chords and lyrics and backing track, even if I just play the one and five and some basic bass runs. The problem comes in with some of the songs is the singing. Like I really battle with some of Elton John's stuff like "Rocket Man". It simply does not suit my style. What type of music (or artists) are you looking to play? If I have any I can send you an SGU and you can try out the video thing, Having the lyrics above the chords just takes a bit of getting used to but it doesn't take long.
read rhe rb manual re lyrics...also some tricks you might find usefull. eg in rb tracks view which displays chords you can also have lyric view.
om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 06/10/2510:07 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs (90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
I love your videos - they are excellent for learning the chords and words while taking a walk. Ok - the format doesn't separate verse, chorus, solo, etc into a 1-pager where you could really see the structure and review it quickly at a high level, but that's just the nature of the BB chord view.
Thank you for sharing - I never would have looked.
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