Adding Songs

The app comes packed with a nifty song editor that allows you to add your own songs to your catalog, complete with lyrics and chords.

To add your own songs to SongPane, click or tap on the + button of the main navigation bar or press the N key of your keyboard. This will open the song editor where you can enter the details of your song. Please note that all fields are required. Most fields are self-explanatory, so I will only talk about those that might be a bit trickier.

For the Artist field make sure to separate multiple artists using commas.

The Visibility select box determines who can view (and use) your song. If a song is Public any SongPane user can find and use it. If, on the other hand, you save a song as Private, only you and users with whom you’ve shared a set containing that song will have access to it.

Lyrics and chords

Lyrics and chords represent the body of the song and are usually separated in multiple sections. Beginning of sections are marked by single characters placed between square brackets on their own line. Chords need to be placed on separate lines above the lyrics. Here is an example:

[1]
 D                  G        D
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
                         A7
That saved a wretch like me.
  D                  G       D
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
               A7      D
Was blind, but now  I  see.
[2]
      D                     G        D
T’was grace that thought my heart to fear,
                     A7
And grace my fears relieved
    D                 G       D
How precious did that grace appear,
            A7      D
The  hour I first believed.

Section types

The currently supported section types are:

• Verse – use [1] for first verse, [2] for the second, and so on
• Chorus – enter [C]
• Bridge – type [B]
• Pre-Chorus – use [P]
• Intro – write [I]
• Outro – input [O]

Supported chord types

SongPane recognizes a large number of chord types. Here is a list of some of the most important:

• Major – for example A or C
• Minor – for example Am or Cm
• Augmented – for example Aaug or Caug
• Diminished – for example Adim or Cdim
• Dominant – for example C7 or C13
• Added tone – for example C2, C6 or Cadd9
• Suspended – for example Asus4 (equivalent to Asus) or Csus2
• Slash chords – for example A/E or Cm/Bb

Chord placement

Chord names should be placed directly above the syllable where the chord change occurs in the song, or above empty spaces if the chord changes between words.

Make sure there is enough space between each two consecutive chord names so they won’t overlap when rendered, especially when the key is changed. The amount of whitespace to use depends on many factors but a minimum of 7 whitespace characters between chord names is usually recommended.

In order to have enough spacing between chord names while also keeping them above the correct syllable you can add more whitespace between words or, if multiple chord changes happen on the same word, you can divide that word with hyphens surrounded by whitespace characters.

If you need to place a chord name before a line of text, you can indent that line of text as needed. In this case, it is recommended that you also indent all other lines from the entire section that contains this particular line of text.

Important: Make sure you only use the common whitespace character (the one added when you press spacebar) anywhere white space is needed.