Version 0 (alpha)

Playing at open mic nights with my guitar, I often wished I had a little app on my phone that would automatically show the chords and lyrics of the song I was playing, particularly when it was a song I didn't know very well, or had only learned to play recently. So I wrote one…

Playalong is a little web app that helps you play the chords and sing the lyrics of songs as you are playing the song. It works a bit like karaoke: it counts you in, then automatically shows you the lyrics and chords when you should be playing and singing them. As it turns out, it's also really handy for learning how to play a song in the first place!

It's built in JavaScript with a little help from jQuery and optimised for mobile Safari, but it should work in any browser.

1. Load in a chord file. It's copy-and-paste in only right now, I'm afraid.
2. Hit play.
3. The metronome counts one measure, showing you the start of the song faded out, and then starts. The currently line of the song is shown in the middle of the screen, and the next line creeps in from the right a little, just to give you a clue about the next chord to play or word to sing.

You can also adjust the tempo of the song by clicking/tapping the area where the tempo is displayed and typing in the tempo, or by clicking/tapping in the tempo you want using the 'tap' button down the bottom right.

• The way that the lines of songs move across the screen is a little jarring at the moment. There's something better on the way.

The files used by Playalong are based on the Guitar chord file format.

Essentially:

• Songs are marked up with "directives" which give details of the song (more below) and help define song sections.
• Choruses are marked up with the {start_of_chorus} and {end_of_chorus} section directives.
• Anything that is not marked up is considered a verse.
• Important: So that Playalong knows how long each measure is, one line in the file must represent one measure of the song.
• Additional section directives are supported by Playalong:
  • {start_of_bridge} and {end_of_bridge}
  • {start_of_intro} and {end_of_intro}

In future, Playalong may also support ASCII tab and LRC files.

You can define various details of a song using meta directives. Typically, these are written at the top of chord files, but they don't have to be. Here's a full list of song meta you can set…

Required:

• {title:Song Title}
• {artist:Who The Song Is By}
• {copyright:Who owns the copyright?}

Optional:

• {album:What Album It's Off}
• {subtitle:If there's some subtext to the album name perhaps}
• {tempo:BPM}
• {meter:4/4}
• {notes:Extra info about this chord file.}
• {author:Who Figured Out How To Play This Song}
• {source:Where this chord file or lyrics were found, e.g. a link to a site.}

Notes:

• Details of copyright are required to help protect you and me from the legal implications of using representations of copyrighted material (see Copyright Issues below). The copyright owner will typically be the person or group who wrote the song. If the song is Traditional use {artist:Traditional} and {copyright:exempt}.
• You can specify multiple sources using a {source:whatever} for each source. Sources do not have to be a link.

You may have heard news in 2006 of guitar tab sites receiving "take down" orders for infringing songwriters' copyright (see Discord over guitar sites). Sadly, this meant the death of OLGA, the oldest online library of guitar and bass tab, which I remember using to learn how to play my favourite songs as far back as 1996.

As I'm slightly worried about similar action being taken towards Playalong, this app comes packaged with examples that are free/exempt from copyright.

Important: Playalong requires chord files to include copyright details as a meta directive. If this is missing, Playalong will not load the file. This is to help protect you and me from the legal implications of using other people's music and lyrics. If you write a chord file, please ensure you include copyright details as a meta directive, e.g. {copyright:Barry Manilow}. If you publish the music or lyrics for a song that is copyright material, you can get into trouble! I accept no responsibility if this happens. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to share such files privately with your friends, since you're effectively teaching a friend how to play a favourite song. However, I am not a lawyer. If in doubt, don't.

If you write a chord file for one of your own songs, it's up to you whether or not you publish it. If you want to publish one of your songs and you don't mind it being freely distributable and free from copyright, I suggest you put something like {copyright:free} in your chord file. If the song is Traditional, put {artist:Traditional} and {copyright:exempt}.

• HTML5 Guitar Tab Player with the Firefox 4 Audio Data API
• VexFlow: Music Engraving in JavaScript and HTML5

Playalong code by Jon Gibbins.

Icon designed by Dirceu Veiga and used under a Freeware Non-commercial license.