The well-known iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch notation and tab editor Stave'n'Tabs is now available on your Mac. Simple interface, fast files' opening, smart and convenient tools let you feel the atmosphere of the majestic classical scores, dynamic rock ballads or good old jazz. Neueste Version: 4.4.3 erlaubnis: Gratis Bewertet 4/5 von 11 leute. Was macht Stave'n'Tabs tun? The well-known iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch notation and tab editor Stave'n'Tabs is now available on your Mac. A simple notation and tab editor, Stave'n'Tabs could become your indispensable helper in music creation. Use smart and convenient tools of Stave'n'Tabs for composing and improving scores on your. Finale Notepad is a popular free music notation software for Windows. Using it, you can easily create guitar tablature. While starting with a new music notation document, you can select type as Tablature Guitar TAB.You can then select a time signature, set measures, and choose a concert key signature.Now, you can use available tools to complete the guitar music sheet. The Guitar Pro application allows all guitarists to enjoy viewing, playing, as well as writing tablature easily, right from their mobile device. This mobile version of the famous Guitar Pro tab-editing program is the ideal companion for you to practice your favorite songs and share them at any time, anywhere! An arpeggio, a riff, a chord sequence ringing in your head? You can now note and save.
- Transpose your Song Sheets (Lead Sheets) to any key.
- Convert Song Sheets to/from ChordPro format for use with Onsong, Songbook, Chordinator, SongCat, Songsheet Generator and other apps.
- Convert to/from the Nashville Numbering System.
- Convert to/from the solfège (Do, Re, Mi..) Naming System.
- Convert Harmonica tab sheets to/from ChordPro format.
- Create any number of Set Lists with any number of songs.
- Auto-scroll songs in the editor as you play them.
- Print songbooks with guitar chord diagrams.
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What is ChordSmith?
ChordSmith is a Giftware program that can transpose song sheets containing chords and lyrics from one key to any other.It can also edit and convert song sheet formats (including Harmonica tabs) between ChordPro format and two-line format (chords above lyrics). You can find many free sources of song sheets in both formats on the Internet. Some sources of song sheets are listed at the end of this document.In addition, ChordSmith will convert songs among different musical notation systems: Letter names (A through G), Nashville numbers (1 through 7), and solfège names (Do, Re, Mi..). ChordSmith is accompanied by a modified open-source application, Chord, which can be launched by ChordSmith and which, among many other features, allows you to view and print songs and songbooks with high quality and optionally with guitar chord symbols.
ChordSmith also lets you create any number of named setlists. It has an autoscroll feature that scrolls the song on your screen while you play it.
ChordSmith is written in the Java programming language and will run on any operating system that has Java 1.7 or higher installed. It runs in Microsoft Windows, Macintosh OS and Linux.
Note: This site may contain affiliate links. That means that if you click on them and buy anything at all, I'll get a small commission from the sale (at no additional cost to you). For more information, read my disclosure.
Who can use ChordSmith?
If you play a chordal instrument such as guitar, piano, etc., and you play 'by ear' based on chords from song sheets, you can use ChordSmith to transpose your chords into any key you prefer.If you use an app, such as OnSong,Chordinator, SongBookor Setlist Helper on your iPad or Android tablet, which requires its input to be in ChordPro format, you can use ChordSmith to convert your song sheets from two-line format to ChordPro. If you already have a large number of songs in two-line format, you can use ChordSmith's batch feature to convert hundreds of files in seconds to ChordPro (or the reverse).
What is a song sheet?
A song sheet is a text file that has the chords and lyrics of a song. Sometimes they are called 'fake sheets' or 'lead sheets'. There are three styles of song sheets that are most common on the Web: 'Two-line' style, ChordPro style, and 'Rise Up' style. A fourth kind of song sheet is the Harmonica tab sheet, which uses numbers instead of chord names to indicate which hole to play on the harmonica.Two Line Style Song Sheets
The first style, which for want of a better name I call 'two-line' style, is easiest for humans to read. In two-line style, the chords are above the words where the chord changes are to be made. It looks like this:Here is the result of transposing the above two-line example from the key of D to the key of F#:
ChordPro Style Song Sheets
The second song sheet style is called 'ChordPro' and was developed to be easy for a machine to read. Software exists (for example, Chord and Songsheet Generator) to convert ChordPro text into HTML or PostScript. ChordPro has the chords embedded in the lyrics using square brackets as delimiters. Here is a ChordPro equivalent to the above:And here is the transposed version:
ChordSmith can convert files from two-line format to ChordPro and the reverse. The files must be text-only files without tabs--no HTML, no Word files, etc. ChordSmith doesn't know how to handle the formatting features of those files. But see below in the section 'What if my song sheets are not in pure text files'.
The following figure shows a song in the ChordPro format. The figure also shows ChordSmith in its 'Dark Background' mode.
Rise Up Style Song Sheets
The third style, popularized by Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook, is designed to minimize space by putting the chords for an entire verse on a single line following the verse like this:The above example was borrowed from http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/charts.htm, which describes the format in detail. ChordSmith cannot convert this format (which I will refer to as 'rise-up' format) to or from ChordPro or two-line formats, but it can transpose it from one key to another.
Harmonica Tab Song Sheets
Harmonica players use a two-line format to describe how to play a song using the harmonica. The first line of a pair has numbers representing which hole to use and other characters to represent whether to blow,or draw, or bend the note. Since these notations do not represent note names or chords, ChordSmith cannot transpose them between keys but it can convert them to and from ChordPro format.There are two main harmonica tab notation schemes. The more prevalent one uses numbers to represent hole position on the harmonica and a minus sign to represent drawing a breath, no sign to represent blowing. It has a few other conventions the details of which you can find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature#Harmonica_tablature. The second main notation scheme uses numbers for the harmonica hole positions followed by a 'B' for 'Blow' and 'D' for Draw. You can find details for this method at http://www.harmonicainstruction.com/songs_marylamb.shtml.
The following snippet of Oh Susanna (from http://www.harptabs.com/song.php?ID=4297) illustrates the first notation scheme mentioned.
Letter Notation
The letter naming system uses the capital letters A through G to name the notes of the octave. To indicate the half-steps above and below the named note it uses the '#' for a sharp note and the lower case B, 'b', for a flat note. ChordSmith allows you to convert between Letter notation and the other notations (Nashville notation and solfège notation).Nashville notation
The Nashville Numbering System (NNS) is a method of using the numbers 1 through 7 instead of names to designate the chords of a song. The advantage of the Nashville Numbering System is that you can play a song in any key without changing your song sheet. It requires that you know what the chords are in each key for the given numbers. Using numbers means that a song sheet is valid in any key as long as you remember the corresponences between the numbers and the chords of whatever key the song is to be played in. ChordSmith allows you to convert between Nashville notation and the other notations (Letter notation and solfège notation).Solfège Notation
Some countries prefer to use the names DO, RE, ME.. instead of letters to name their notes and chords. This is called 'solfège' notation. ChordSmith can convert among solfège, Nashville and Letter names. It can also convert between two-line and ChordPro format for all three notations. Here is an example in two-line format, where Do represents the C chord:ChordSmith allows you to change the solfège names if the defaults are not to your liking. You define your preferred names in a text file in the ChordSmith folder. See the ChordSmith Help file after installation for instructions.
Where can I find song sheets?
You can enter your own chords and lyrics into Chordsmith to create your own song sheets, but you can also find song sheets for thousands of songs on the internet. One way is to do a Google, Yahoo or Bing search for the name of the song you are interested in, enclosed in quotes, followed by the search words 'chords lyrics', like this:Here are a few websites that provide free song sheets:
- http://scorpexuke.com/ (Songs here are in ChordPro format. Designed for Ukelele players, but works for any instrument.)
- http://www.guntheranderson.com/(This one is all in 'rise-up' format)
What if my song sheets are not in pure text files?
OODocBatchConverter is another program I wrote that can help you convert a bunch of files from one format, say DOC or RTF, to another format, say TXT. (It won't convert from PDF to TXT.) The program uses the free Apache OpenOffice program to do the conversions. It can do any conversion that Apache OpenOffice can perform because it uses Apache OpenOffice to do the actual conversion. Without OODocBatchConverter you would have to convert the files one at a time. Apache OpenOffice is an excellent office suite that includes a word processer (Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a presentation program (Impress), a drawing program (Draw), and a database program (Base), all for no cost.After conversion to pure text format you will probably have to edit most of the chords to position them properly over the lyrics. That's because most people use tabs to position the chords in the DOC, DOCX, or RTF formats and the tabs need to be replaced by unpredictable numbers of spaces in the pure text format.
What is Giftware?
ChordSmith a giftware program. I have enjoyed creating and maintaining it as a hobby and I give it to you in hopes that you will enjoy using it. It is my gift to you. If you use it and like it, you might feel moved to make a gift to me. If so, you can do so with the PayPal links below, with complete security. Any amount will make me happy. If you decide to make a gift, you will be helping me pay for the maintenance of the program and this website. If you decide not to donate money, maybe you'd like to send me a note about your experiences with ChordSmith (hopefully good, but if not good, I need to know that too). I will consider your note a gift, for it is an investment of your time and interest.
Thanks for your interest,
John Grosberg
Make a Gift
Download ChordSmith
Click here to download the ChordSmith program, version 8.3 - Updated Aug 21, 2020. What's new.NOTE: After downloading, if double-clicking does not launch the installer, then your machine probably does not have Java installed. Click on the 'Java Download' button below to download and install the Java Runtime Environment. Mac users can get the latest Java for Mac at this URL: http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_mac.xml. Mac users who want Java 1.6 can get it fromhttp://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572.
If you have trouble installing ChordSmith:Mac Users:
Windows users, please note: IF YOUR OS WON'T LET THE INSTALLER INSTALL THE PROGRAM, then do one of the following:
Linux users, please read the following: The easiest way to install ChordSmith is to download the zip version of the file and unzip it . Then set the permissions on the 'ChordSmith_INTL.jar' file to 'Executable'. You can make a link to it an put the link on your desktop. Double-clicking the executable jar file or the link file should start the program. To use the ChordSmith installer under Linux: Download the installer from the website. It should work with Linux if you have Java properly installed. Don't let your Archive program try to extract files from it. Set the permissions on the installChordSmith.jar file to allow execution. You might have to run the installer in a command terminal like this: cd java -jar installChordSmith.jar Make sure you install the program into a directory in which you have full permissions. You might need to set the execute permission on the installed ChordSmith_INTL.jar file. Once the program is installed, it must be run such that its working directory is the directory containing the ChordSmith_INTL.jar file. So, probably the easiest thing to do is to create a command file containing commands similar to the following two, perhaps named 'launchChordSmith': cd java -jar ChordSmith_INTL.jar Then, whenever you want to launch the program, just invoke the command file. |
Click here to download the ChordSmith program
Change Log:
Changes for Version 8.3- Added feature to the autoscroll panels so that as long as user long-clicks the left or right 'Skip>' buttons, the 10 sec skip will be done repeatedly. This does not work for the touch screen long-presses.
- Minor updates to ChordSmith Help file.
- Added 'Getting Started' menu item to Help menu.
Changes for Version 8.2
- Added ability to copy or move selected songs between set lists using the Set List panel's popup menu.
- Made the help button (at the right of the Transpose button) on the EditPanel context-sensitive. Now, if a chord is marked for Moving or Copying (with a green highlight), the help button will bring up the help text describing 'Repositioning Chord Names'. Otherwise, it will bring up the help text for 'Transposition Tool Bar'.
Changes for Version 8.1
- Bug Fix: Certain key transpositions would produce unnecessary double-sharp or double-flat chords. Corrected the transposer so it would produce the simpler enharmonic name, e.g., 'Abb' would be changed to 'G'.
- Added menu item 'Add Selected Song(s) to Set List' to the Files popup menu. Allows user to select some songs in the Files list, then add them to the end of one of the existing set lists.
- Updated a few tooltips.
- Minor corrections to the Help file.
- Added ability to handle slash chords in all notations (letter, nashville and solfege).
- Fixed bug that caused the lower slide rule to move to wrong location when clicked.
- Added a menu item 'Send Selected List(s) to Chord App' to the Set List panel popup menu.
- BUGFIX: Fixed error in 'Check for Update' feature that caused it to fail.
Changes for version 7.7
Stave'n'tabs 3 6 – Notation And Tab Editor Pdf
- Changed Preferences>Editor tab to allow using any system language in the editor. You should only use this if your language is not accommodated by ChordSmith's default set of fonts. If you use it, make sure that you choose fonts that are 'mohospaced', i.e., every character, including space is of the same width.
- Changed name of prefs file from '.ChordSmithPreferences' to 'ChordSmithPreferences' so it won't be a hidden file on Unix type systems.
- Changed 'Edit>Replace Tabs with Spaces' menu item to work on a selection if there is one, or the entire file if there is no selection. Before it only worked on the entire file.
- Improved detection of path to jar file: Made paths to resources (such as Fonts.zip) not depend on the user's working directory so that the jar file can be started from any directory in a console window.
- Now allows launch of the Chord app (menu selection File>Send to Chord App or Ctrl+G) without needing a song to be in the editor.
- Fixed Keyboard slide rule, which was unresponsive to clicks where the mouse wasn't held perfectly still (slight mouse drags), so it now responds to mouse release as well.
- BUGFIX: Added a timeout to the 'Check for Update' feature in case the website is inaccessible for any reason.
Changes for version 7.6.1
- BUGFIX: fixed bug that caused chord lines with single chord to not be converted to chordpro.
- BUGFIX: When song was in chordpro format and prefs were set to NOT mark up the title/subtitle, the title/subtitle would still be marked up when changing music notation (NNS<->Solfege<->Letter).
Changes for version 7.6
- Added View>Show/Hide Scroll Controls menu item.
- Added View>Scroll From Editor/Set List menu option to toggle the smaller autoscroll panel to be at the bottom of the editor window or the Set List window.
- Preferences: Added checkbox to chose whether to display/hide autoscroll controls (Doesn't affect the AutoScroll Tab).
- BUGFIX: If song was in Chopro format and there were some non-chord text lines following the {title: ..} and/or {subtitle: ..} directives, and a redundant command was given to convert to Chopro format, then the plain text lines would be removed.
Changes for version 7.5
- Added button to the Song List title bar to open the selected song in the editor window.
- Added a button to the Song List title bar to move the selection to the next song and open it.
- Added 'Send Selected Song(s) to Chord App' item to the 'Files' and 'Song List' popup menus.
- Added 'Enter/Exit TouchScreen mode' button to Edit Panel to allow users to make List and Tree list multi-selections without using the Ctrl key. This makes it easier to select multiple songs on a touch screen.
- Changed popup menus' text in Set List mgr to Title Case.
- Made some organizational edits and corrections in the Help file.
- BUGFIX: Fixed bug that wouldn't recognize 11th chords, eg., 'G11'.
- BUGFIX: Transposing a song in ChordPro format caused the Title and Subtitle directives to be removed.
- BUGFIX: If a chordpro file had title and/or subtitle directives but those were followed by plain text line(s), the trailing line(s) would also be automatically be converted to directives {title:.. and/or {subtitle:..
Changes for version 7.4:
- Added scrollpane controls () to the Song List panel.
- Added 'Open SetList' button to Set List panel.
- Added 'Open Song' button to Song List panel.
- Added 'View' menu. Moved Show/Hide keyboard, Show/Hide Tools, and Dark Editor ('Light/Dark Background) menu items from the Edit menus to the View menu.
- Added 'Time Remaining' indicator To panels that control scrolling.
Changes for version 7.3:
- Added display of song lengths and set lengths. These are computed based on ChordPro {duration: mm:ss} commands that the user inserts in songs.
- Added a button (pencil edit icon) to the ChordPro tools panel to allow user direct access to the wizard for creating and deleting ChordPro commands from the tools list.
- Some minor changes to button icons.
- Added scrollpane to the Notation Tools panel and the AutoScroll panel.
Changes for version 7.2:
- Allowed 'mi' as a valid substitute for 'm' or 'min' as a chord variation abbreviation for 'minor' per user request.
- On AutoScroll tab:
- Added forward and backward Skip buttons.
- Changed size of AutoScroll buttons to make them easier to use on a touch-screen.
- Changed the Song Length box to accept decimal or mm:ss time format.
- Changed Refresh button so it copies the time from the {duration: mm:ss} directive as-is, i.e., 'mm:ss', instead of converting it to decimal time.
- Clarified some tooltips.
- Revised the Help doc for above changes and corrected some formatting problems.
- SongListPanel: Changed tooltip and confirm dialog to say 'Remove' song instead of 'Delete' song from set.
- Added the Iosevka-light.ttf font to the fonts.zip file
- Made setlist mgr and song lists respond to Enter key.
- Added popup menus to the Setlist manager and Song lists.
- Updated the PDF version of the Help file.
- Updated copyright date to 2018 everywhere.
- Added Set List Manager.
- Changed 'Song List' tab name to 'Files'.
- Changed 'Preferred Chord Names' to 'Familiar Chord Names'.
- Moved all ChordSmith support files to be in their own /ChordSmith folder.
- Added a 'File>Select Songs for Book' menu item to the CHORD program to help in making song books.
- Fixed some bugs.
- Changed the transposing algorithm adding the option to use chord names that are appropriate to a song's key (consistent with music theory) instead of just the more common chord names that were on the program's keyboard slide rule.
- Changed the keyboard slide rules to handle either the chord names that ChordSmith has used in the past or the full set of music theory chord names. Choose between these in Preferences>Editor tab.
- Added a checkbox to the Preferences>Editor tab to allow the user to choose whether to use the limited set of chord names ('Preferred' names) or the key-appropriate set of names. ChordSmith defaults to the limited set for compatibility with earlier versions.
- Added 'What's new..' item to Help menu. It opens your browser to this location.
- Cleaned up the Dark Editor interface.
- Fixed some bugs.
Changes for version 5.6:
- Revised Song Directory panel, ChordPro Tools panel, and other panels to change their foreground and background colors along with the Editor's colors under control of the Edit>Dark Editor (F7) menu item.
- Adjusted the display of the folder icons in the Song Directory poanel so that they don't overlap each other for small font sizes.
- Added acceptance of double sharp and double flat enharmonic equivalents. (Converts them to the basic non-double equivalents that are shown on the Keyboard slide rule.)
- Added a 'Preview' button to the ChordPro Tool Wizard so user can see how the command will look when used.
- Swapped the Cancel and OK buttons in the Define New Tool and the Delete Tools wizards to conform to the other dialogs in the Preferences dialog.
- When closing the Preferences dialog, now destroys the ChordPro Tool Wizard window.
- Keep Preferences/Tools from creating multiple Wizard Create and Delete Dialogs.
- Lengthened tooltip delay from 100 ms to 500 ms on the ChordPro tools tab.
- Added 'Artist' and 'Capo' tools to the ChordPro Tools list.
- Changed name of 'Reformat Tab' tool to 'Align tab'.
- Changed name of 'Format Directive(s)' tool to 'Convert to Directive(s)'
- Changed ChordPro tool tab to read its tool descriptions from a file so users can add their own tools.
- Added an 'Add Tool' wizard and a 'Delete Tool(s)' wizard to allow the user to edit the ChordPro tools list.
- Added 'Help>Download Manuals (PDF)' menu item to download PDF files for both manuals (ChordSmith and Chord).
- BUGFIX: Chord program Help>Help locked up the program and did not open the help doc.
- Changed both ChordSmith and Chord to make them compatible with Java version 9.
- Changes to ChordSmith:
- Added {duration: mm:ss} directive to ChordPro tools panel.
- Added functionality to set the song length in the AutoScroller automatically from the {duration:..} directive in a song.
- Added 'Refresh' button to AutoScroll panel to update the AutoScroll Song Length when the {duration..} directive is added or changed by the user.
- Added 'User Forum' item to Help menu.
- Changes to Chord:
- Made user Options persistent between executions of Chord.
- Added a 'Defaults' button to the Options panel.
- Options panel now allows multi-line Copyright text. Copyright text is saved between executions of Chord.
- Bugfix: Changed Chord program so it won't give error messages for unrecognized ChordPro commands. It will ignore them.
- Added to the ChordPro tools the ability to insert full ChordPro command names instead of just their abbreviations. Choice is made via Edit>Preferences>Tools tab.
- Added ChordPro command abbrev/fullname converter and batch file converter via Convert menu. Converts ChordPro commands from their abbreviations to their full names or the reverse.
- Added version number to title of 'Help>Check for update..' dialog box.
- Finally got the scroll timing to be exact.
- Bug FIxes:
- Caret was invisible on dark editors because it was black. Changed it to white on dark and black on white.
- When font is changed in preferences after a chopro markup (or other change) but before saving, the text reverts to the original unmarked-up file without warning when the OK button is clicked on Preferences dialog. Now it will warn user.
- 'Copy Chords' (Alt-click) would move highlight to lower position (left, by the width of the chord) when chord was pasted at the end of a line that was at an earlier position (lower line number) than the highlight.
- Added preference to allow user to specify default file extensions for chopro and two-line files. Allows no extension, '. On Mac made the 'Attach menus to Mac menu bar' checkbox enable the 'Apply' and 'Revert' buttons when changed.
- Updated copyright dates on About box.
- Changes to CHORD co-program:
- Removed the unimplemented 'Number logical pages, not physical' checkbox from the options panel.
- Added ability to independently enable/disable printing of the footer line, page number, and title from the Options panel.
- BugFix: when ^G (Go To Page #) text box was empty and OK or Cancel was chosen, it gave a 'Invalid Numerical Value' alert.
- Bugfix: 'Even page number on left' option did not work.
- Rearranged the remaining checkboxes on the options panel.
- BugFix: locally defined chord grids would display a solid circle atop open strings. Changed that to draw an open circle.
- Bugfix: 'No grids for easy chords' option did not work.
- Added an auto-scroll panel to the tools pane. Ctrl-Period ('Ctrl-.') toggles between Start scrolling and Stop scrolling. Ctrl-Comma ('Ctrl-,') toggles between scroll Pause and scroll Resume.
- Added ability to toggle the editor between 'night colors' (white letters on dark background) and normal colors (black text on white background) using the F7 key or the 'Edit>Dark Editor' menu item.
- Changed some menu locations on Mac installation to better conform to Mac user interface standards: Moved 'About', 'Preferences' and 'Quit' menu items from the File, Edit and Help menus to the Main program menu (next to the Apple menu), 'ChordSmith>About', 'ChordSmith>Preferences' and 'ChordSmith>Quit'.
- Made similar menu changes to CHORD, the companion program.
- Fixed minor bugs in CHORD that affect both Mac and Windows operation.
- Now allows Mac user to choose between attaching application menubar to the standard Mac position at top of screen or to the Windows standard position at the top of the application main window. The reason for this option is that there is a bug in the Java/Mac GUI code that inhibits menu items on the standard Mac menu bar from changing the visibility of their state. See the topic 'Note for Mac Users' in the 'Preferences' section of the ChordSmith>Help document for more details.
- Added to Song List directory tree:
- The ability to respond to Enter key by opening a selected file or folder into the editor.
- Alt-Page Up/Down: moves selection to previous/next song and opens it in the editor.
- Changed comment delimiter in solfege.txt file from '#' to '!' ('#' is still allowed).
- Bug fix: Now includes the solfegeNamesExample.txt file in the installer download.
- Changed installer default location to 'C:UsersPublic' for Windows and 'Applications' for Mac.
- Added the handling of solfège (DO, RE, ME..) names with either fixed DO or Moveable DO.
- Allows user to change the default solfège names to their preference using a solfegeNames.txt file.
- Added conversion between solfège and either Letter chord names or Nashville numbers.
- Any ChordSmith feature that applies to Letter names and Nashville numbers also applies to solfège Names.
- Added a Notation Tools tab to the editor's left hand panel. This allows notation conversions with a single click.
- Added a solfège keyboard.
- Changed default 'Old Key' and 'New Key' settings to 'C' (instead of 'A') for convenience of those using the solfège conversions.
- Now can use the Ctrl-Click on the Nashville button to convert to solfège.
- Added 'drag and drop' to Batch Converter dialog box.
- ChordSmith now automatically converts a non-ChordPro song to ChordPro as is required when sending it to the Chord App.
- Included a modified version of the open source program, Chord, to allow you to see how your songs will look with their chordPro directives. Chord will also beautifully print songs and song books.
- Added menu item 'File>Send to Chord App' (Ctrl/Command-G) so ChordSmith can send a song in chordPro format to Chord to be reviewed and printed.
- Added webpages to website to allow users to download the modified Chord distribution.
- Added several directive tools to the ChordPro tool list.
- Alphabetized the two tool lists.
- Added newline at end of all directive templates (lower list).
- Updated interface to work better on the Mac:
- All Mac menu shortcuts now use the command key instead of the Ctrl key.
- Some keyboard shortcuts that didn't work on the Mac have been corrected.
- Minor bug fix.
- Added ChordPro tool 'Reformat Tab (minimize)'.
- Added warning when a chordpro tool that requires a selection is clicked and there is no selection.
- Improved behavior of annotation lines. Now allows lines including '|' and '/' for markup.
- Improved identification of chord names by reducing false positives.
- Changed 'key' chordpro tool to use 'key' instead of the abbreviation, 'k'.
- Can now specify a song file path to be opened when launching ChordSmith from command line.
- Made the song list put the tree nodes in alphabetical order based on the user's Locale.
- Added Ctrl+R accelerator code to the Edit>Replace Tabs with Spaces menu item.
- Corrected some dead URL links in the Help file.
- Changed names of Tab Template Chordpro tools, eliminating their numbers (e.g., 'Tab Template 2') to make them more descriptive. (e.g., 'Tab Template (Labeled)').
- Added icons to some Help menu items.
- Added 'Top' button to the Help browser.
- Improved Chord name validation algorithm to minimize anomalous cases.
- Fixed failure to open browser on MacOS.
- Added 'Indent Selection' (right and left shift) items to 'Edit' menu. They add or remove a space at the beginning of each line of a selection.
- Changed the color of the 'move chord' highlight from blue to green. Its blue was too close to the selection highlight color.
- Fixed other minor bugs.
- Added 'alt' to legal variations on chord names.
- Added Print Preview menu item to File menu.
- Added a Search field and button to the Help Browser.
- Added a 'Replace All' button to the Find dialog.
- Made editor replace all non-breaking spaces (hex A0) with normal breaking spaces (hex 20).
- Added tool to ChordPro tools list to 'Format Directive(s)'.
- Changed File>Save so that if the file has no extension, Save will not add one unless it is a chopro version.
- Added ability to apply transposition to a selection within a song to allow user to 'modulate' the key. This was a user suggestion.
- Fixed several functions (transposeText, convertToChordPro, convertFromChordPro, breakColonLines) in class TextTransposer so that they don't add a newline at the end of their output text if the input text didn't have one.
- Disabled Edit and popup menu items that affect selections when there is no selection.
- Changed 'Edit->remove chordpro Directives from Selection' so it removes the markups but leaves the text for the commands Title, subtitle, comment, guitar comment, and footer. It still removes markup and text for all other directives. It works for multi-line directives also. E.g., if Title is two lines.
- Added Copy Chords/Paste Chords menu items to edit menus.
- Improved conversion of multiline title and subtitle directives between ChordPro and 2-Line style. If there are multiline title and/or subtitle directives, they are left alone: they are not stripped out when converting to 2-line.
- ChordPro tools that require a selection now will do nothing if there is no selection. They used to insert a directive with a 'null' at the cursor.
- In BatchConvertFiles dialog, changed the tooltips of the 'Select Input Files' and 'Select Output Folder' labels so that after input and output are selected, the tooltips show the whole path to each. Before, for a long path there was no way to see what it was.
- Added an 'autosave' feature to save a song being edited to a recovery file periodically to avoid loss of work. The Autosave time interval can be set by the user in Preferences.
- Moved 'Apply' button from the 'Editor' tab to the bottom of the Preferences dialog box.
- Added small 'Help' button to the transposition toolbar.
- Added 'Current Encoding' label to the Preferences Encoding tab.
- Rearranged the ChordPro Tools list.
- Added 'Change Text Encoding' feature.
- Added 'Don't ask again' checkbox to the popup dialog that asks if user wants to download new version.
- Preferences Help button now jumps to the help for the selected tab.
- Added help buttons to ChordPro Tools tab and Song List tab.
- Made all the help buttons jump to the place in the help text that discusses the feature on which the help button is placed.
- Added a 'Tutorials' selection to the Help menu.
- Added ability to convert Harmonica Tabs to and from ChordPro format.
- Added Shift-click to 'Transpose' button to perform the reverse transposion.
- Added a splash screen.
- Allowed Ctrl+Alt as 'copy chords' key. This is to accommodate Linux (Ubuntu), which preempts the Alt key in the editor. Alt by itself still does the job in other operating systems.
- Fixed bug: the 'copy and move chords' feature couldn't place a chord at the end of the song if there was not an newline character there.
- Fixed bug: Made Old Key dropdown menu move the Nashville keyboard to proper position when the Old Key selection is changed. It used to not move the Nashville keyboard.
- Fixed bug that sometimes prevented selecting an output folder in the 'Batch Convert' dialog.
- Added conversion between Nashville Numbering System and standard chord notation.
- Added Nashville 'keyboard'.
- fixed some minor bugs.
- Added 'Open/Expand/Collapse' menu item and 'Expand All', 'Collapse All', 'Set as root' and 'Up one level' menu items to the Song Directory popup menu.
- Added 'Back', 'Up one Level' and 'Cancel' buttons to the Song Directory title panel.
- Added optional automatic markup to subtitle line in addition to the title line.
- Added 'Show tools on startup' checkbox to Preferences Tools tab.
- Added two ukelele tab templates to the ChordPro tools panel.
- Added cut, copy, and paste to Song List Panel's popup menu items.
- Made Song List panel group all folders together at beginning of each level's list, before the list of files.
- Added multi-noncontiguous-selection capability to the Song List panel.
- Other minor user interface changes.
- Added a panel to display the contents of a user-chosen song folder.
- Combined the song folder panel with the ChordPro tools in a resizable tabbed panel.
- Added a menu item, 'Edit>Extend Chord Lines with blanks' to help with repositioning or adding chord names to the end of a line.
- Added a 'Tools' tab to the Preferences Dialog to control the font size of the tools (ChordPro commands panel and Song folder tree) separately from that of the editor.
- In the File open/save/save-as dialogs and the batch convert dialog, the chopro filter now allows several different common chordPro extensions, eg., chopro, cpro, chp, etc.
- When opening a new file in the editor, it now scrolls to the top instead of the bottom.
- Added a set of tools to markup a song with ChordPro codes. (Access from Edit>Show ChordPro Tools menu item.)
- Fixed bug in conversion from chordpro of '{t:song title}' where it would treat any line starting with '{t' as if it were a title. That caused it to misinterpret other tags that started with t.
- Fixed the problem of program failure on the Mac. Many thanks to Al McPhee for his aid in troubleshooting the problem.
- When converting to ChordPro, now by default the program assumes that the first non-blank line is the title and rewrites it in chordpro format as: {t: myTitle}. When converting back from ChordPro to 2-line, removes the chordPro formatting and left justifies the title.
- Added a checkbox to the Preferences>General tab to enable/disable the ChordPro title markup.
- Fixed operation of the Preferences Revert button.
- Revised the program so that now it needn't be started from its home directory, but may be started from any directory.
- Added .txt and .chopro filters to the Batch Convert 'Input Files' dialog and the Open Files dialog.
- Added a 'Preferences' panel to set the default song directory and the preferred font and font size.
- Added an 'Edit>Select All' menu item.
- Made Batch Convert dialog input and output file selection buttons start browsing from the current default song folder.
- Made three items in the Edit menu maintain the selection after they are completed so they can be applied in succession without reselecting: Remove Chords From Selection, Remove Blank Lines From Selection, Insert Blank Lines into Selection.
- Rearranged order of same three menus.
- Changed font of the Help file from Times to Helvetica.
Writing guitar tabs? There are a lot of tools that can help you do this – some are better than others. Here is a quick overview of several, popular software tools for writing guitar tabs.
Keep in mind, there are a few basic goals you should identify before choosing one:
- Are you only working from guitar, or do you want a more comprehensive tool? If you're a guitarist working mostly from that instrument, check out the first batch of options. If you're multi-instrumentalist, pianist, composer who is looking to write some parts for a guitarist BUT also do a lot of other stuff, you'll probably be more interested in the second batch of options.
- Are you looking to write professional level scores, or just jot down some riffs? For professional scores, you'll need a robust software tool and probably need to pay a few more dollars. These are serious options designed for both guitarists and general musicians. But if you just want to jot down quick riffs, you might look at the Tabd software app.
Guitarist-Oriented Software
These software tools are designed with the guitarist in mind first. That means they do standard musical notation and other things, but are primarily set up for writing guitar tabs, composing, and generally working within a guitarists mindset.
Stave'n'tabs 3 6 – Notation And Tab Editor Word
Guitar Pro 7
Guitar Pro 7 is a professional tab and notation system with loads of features for guitarists who want to literally write music. Truly a 'best in class' piece of software specifically for guitarists.
Tabd
Tabd is an iOS (and soon Android) app aimed at another type of guitar player: the guitarist who wants to do light tab notation, and that's it. For jotting down riffs, sending them to friends, keeping a library of tab on your phone, it can't be beat.
Note: there's no desktop version of this.
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Progression
Progression is another powerful software for guitarists, guitarists, and drummers to notate music. One advantage of Progression is the interface for entering music through a visual fretboard, keyboard, and drum pad. Another is the real music sampling done by folks like Victor Wooten, so you can play back your tab in style.
TuxGuitar
Check out TuxGuitar if you're looking for free and open source solution. It provides the ability to write scores with tab or standard notation.
Fair warning: at the time of this writing, last release was January 2016.
General Scoring Software with Tab functionality
Write 2650 percentage. These software tools are designed for the general musician to create standard musical notation. This often means that they are designed for a piano-based workflow. Guitar tab options are present, but often incorporated as a second, derivative option.
Finale
The gold standard of music notation software. Finale has long been the ‘go to' solution for notating music in any genre and for any instrument. It's a powerful software that takes some time to learn, sort of like Photoshop. But once you do, you can create anything you want.
Sibelius
Sibelius is the other ‘go to' solution for music notation software. Like Coke and Pepsi, Ford and Chevy, Macs and PCs – there are just different groups of people who are strongly committed to either brand. In the end, you get the same high horsepower from Sibelius in terms of notation, scoring, and features.
MagicScore Maestro
MagicScore Maestro aims to be a full service music notation software, but at a lower price. If you want to work with traditional scoring and music notation but are budget-constrained, this may be something to check out.
Have a software recommendation? Let us know in the comments below!
