What is ChordPro?
Essentially, ChordPro is a set of formatting and action instructions that are added to a plain text file containing lyrics to a song. These instructions are called “Directives”. They tell an application how to display and print the lyrics and chords on a computer screen and paper. There are also directives for adjusting various application-specific presentation tools and features all developers would want to provide the user. These features include scroll rate, transposition, a metronome, etc.
The specification and a simple application that demonstrated how the directives can be implemented were developed in 1991 by Martin Leclerc and Mario Dorion. Development stopped and the specification forgotten until Johan Vromans and Adam Monsen revived the project in 2007 under a new program name, Chordii. Development of the ChordPro instruction set continues independently at ChordPro.org.
A detailed explanation of how ChordPro works can be found on the ChordPro.org website. A simplified explanation and list of directives implemented in Songbook can be found on the LinkeSoft website. It is important to note that not all directives available in the ChordPro specification have been implemented in Songbook and similar programs. See ChordPro v6 Specs for the latest set of directives.
References
- “ChordPro, Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChordPro, retrieved July 7, 2021.
- The ChordPro website, https://www.chordpro.org/chordpro/index.html, retrieved July 12, 2021.
- The LinkeSoft Songbook pages, https://www.linkesoft.com/songbook/ , retrieved July 15, 2021.
See Also
- Chordii — a legacy release of Chord utility, supporting ChordPro v4
- ChordPro Project on GitHub — Preview release of Chordii supporting ChordPro v6
- User Forum on Groups.io — ChordPro developers discussion group
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