I personally do not like to read charts in this format, as even if I'm not singing, I tend to like to have the chords above the lyrics. It helps me out a lot when I'm playing a song off the cuff that I do not know at all.
With this format you can count the beats to change chords, which is more reliable than listening for certain words. That works in parts of the song that have no singing, or if the singer varies the phrasing.
I do understand though that based on the fact that we aren't planning on importing lyrics at this time that it may be the only way to integrate chord progressions in a logical way. Did you have another option you could show us?
This could potentially use different symbols than what's shown here, but I think pipe symbols make sense for bar lines. The dashes for repeated beats could be removed, leaving just space -- that's a more traditional style as shown
here. The benefit of a placeholder like the dashes is that it makes the harmonic rhythm clear when the measures aren't evenly divided, as in "Louie Louie":
G - - C | D - - C | G - - C | D - - C
Some charts use slashes to show repeated chords, but since those are also commonly used to show alternate bass notes, I would reserve them for that purpose.
Could we perhaps integrate a song section for each chord progression? Maybe label them 'chorus 1, verse 1, etc' to make quick reference a little easier?
Yes, if a song has different chord progressions for different sections, this could include section labels. In the screen shot I included, the chord progression is relatively long but is the only progression used throughout the song.
Poll
Topic: Built-in chords database (Read 6317 times)