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Editing songs

You can edit an existing song by selecting it in your song library and then tapping the edit button:

Screenshot of the edit song button

Keyboard & mouse You can also edit by selecting a song and pressing F2

Song text layout

Chordle supports editing songs in two formats, Chords above text and ChordPro format. You can switch between these formats at any time using the Edit as dropdown menu in the song editor:

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Song metadata

A screenshot of a song edit screen showing the metadata for “Greensleeves”. It displays specific musical settings: key G, 6/8 time signature, and a tempo of 161 BPM. It also features applied tags for “traditional” and “sample”, lists the artist as “Misc. Traditional”, and includes a YouTube web link.

Key and capo

The song’s key corresponds to the chords as they are written in the editor. By default, changing the key will automatically transpose your written chords to match.

If you need to update the key without altering your existing chords, you can turn off the Update chords in song text option in the editor settings:

A screenshot of the key selector in the song editor. A data spinner and dropdown for the key is on the left, followed by toggle buttons for major and minor and a capo selector. Underneath these is a toggle button labelled “Update chords in song text”

The capo position is purely informational while you’re editing. It just tells Chordle which default capo position to use when you actually play the song. The written chords are always the shapes you play relative to that capo.

Tempo and Time signature

The tempo of the song controls the metronome flash and is recorded in beats per minute (BPM). You can manually enter the tempo or tap the button in time with the beat of the song to set the tempo.

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The time signature controls the number of beats in each bar. This is used when you are using a multi-beat metronome as in the above video, and controls how the beats are grouped.

Duration

Specifying the duration of the song in minutes and seconds (mm:ss) allows you to control the amount of time the song will scroll for when using scrolling layouts.

You can add a web link for a song, e.g. to a YouTube video. This shows up as a link when you are playing a song, so you can quickly open it.

Additional metadata fields

In addition to the song text, you can also add additional metadata for a song by tapping “Add additional field…” and choosing the field to add:

A screenshot of the ‘Add additional field…’ dropdown menu in the Chordle app. The menu displays a list of metadata categories that can be added to a song: Alternative title, Album, Year, CCLI, Composer, Copyright, Lyricist, Notes and Custom field. Artist and Web link aren’t listed because this song already has them.

Field Description
Alternative title An alternative title for the song. This is useful if a song is known by more than one name, e.g. “Amazing Grace” and “How sweet the sound”. When searching for a song in your song library, a song will appear listed twice, once by the main and once by the alternative title.
Album The album the song is from.
Artist The artist who performed the song.
Web link A web link for the song, e.g. to a YouTube video. This shows up as a link when you are playing a song, so you can quickly open it.
Year The year the song was released.
CCLI The CCLI number for the song.
Composer The composer of the song.
Copyright Any copyright information for the song.
Lyricist The lyricist of the song.
Notes Free-form notes for playing the song, such as style, sound or transposition reminders.
Custom field A field with a name and value of your choosing, such as the keyboard patch or groove. Pick it as many times as you need.

Notes and custom fields can be shown at the top of the song with the song header.

Saving songs

When you are finished editing a song, tap the “Save” button in the toolbar to save your changes.

A screenshot of the song editor toolbar. From left to right: Save, Edit as, Chord finder, Hide metadata, Preview and Cancel

Keyboard & mouse You can also save by pressing CTRL+S.

Finding a chord

If you know how to play a chord but not what it’s called, tap Chord finder in the toolbar. Play the shape on the fretboard and Chordle names the chord, ready to insert into the song. See Chord finder for more.

Pasting chords from Word and other sources

When you copy chords-over-text from a source that doesn’t use a fixed-width font, such as a Microsoft Word document, the chords rarely line up once they land in the editor. This is because the spaces that positioned them were measured against a proportional font, not the monospaced text the editor uses.

The Paste button in the editor toolbar is a split button. Tap the main part to paste as normal, or tap the arrow next to it to choose Paste and realign chords (e.g. from Word):

The Paste button in the editor toolbar with the menu open showing the “Paste and realign chords” option

This realigns where each chord sat above its word in the original text and rebuilds the spacing so the chords sit over the correct words again.