Re: modern, simple chord charts desired

[Carl Sorensen]

Adam Monsen <haircut <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> Is it possible to create modern, simple chord charts with LilyPond? 
I'm thinking
> of the kind that are commonly used for sing-alongs that have simply 
lyrics and
> chord names above the words. Something like this:
 
> I scoured google, the bundled documentation (which is excellent, btw!) 
and
> mailing lists but couldn't find examples of what I'm trying to do. 
Any ideas?
> 
> If this isn't the right software to use, is there another bit of free 
(as in
> freedom) software out there than can do this effectively? I've just been 
> typing
> up songs in openoffice.org and manually putting the chords in the right 
place,
> but this is a bit tedious.
> 


Adam,

If you don't want to do music layout, (i.e. notes and staffs), but just 
lyrics
and chord diagrams, it's actually easier to use gchords.sty, a TeX package 
to
produce the output.

The code looks like this:

If a \upchord{\A}{picture} paints a \upchord{\E}{thousand} words
then
\upchord{\Em}{why} can't I paint \upchord{\Dsix}{you?}\\
The \upchord{\DmSix}{words} could never \upchord{\A}{show} the
\upchord{\DmSix}{you} I've come to \upchord{\Eseven}{know}.\\
If a \upchord{\A}{face} could launch a \upchord{\E}{thousand} ships,
then \upchord{\Em}{where} am I to \upchord{\Dsix}{go}?\\
There's \upchord{\DmSix}{no} one home but \upchord{\A}{you}.  You're
\upchord{\DmSix}{all} that's left me \upchord{\Eseven}{too}.


You can find more information at http://www.aei.mpg.de/~peekas/gchords/.

Of course, if you decide later that you want to add a melody line, or if 
you
want to transpose the music, then you can't do it in gchords.

I've done both LilyPond and Gchords.  I use Gchords for sheets for my own 
use,
and LilyPond, with melody lines as well as chords and lyrics, for music 
that 
I
want to share with others.

Hope this helps.

Carl Sorensen