Sheet Music Examples

Various examples of how sites present and format sheet music on the web.

This page serves to document the current list of sheet-music formats and metadata as background research for the development of a sheet music microformat. -Barnaby Walters

Contributors

• Barnaby Walters

See Also

• sheet-music-formats

Contributors

• Barnaby Walters
• Thiago Colares

Examples

• Sheet Music
• Lyrics and Chords

Sheet Music

Ukulele-Tabs.com

• tab example
• Tune Name
• Artist
• “type” (of “chords”)
• Key signature
• Difficulty (decimal out of 5)
• Album (name, links to album page)
• Number of different versions
• Summary of chords used in the song

Within the music (preformatted monospace with textual chord symbols over the text):

• Which fret a capo is on
• Intro/chorus/verse structure

There are some really interesting UI elements here, including chord diagrams on hover and a configurable, if a little dumb, autoscroll. Note that much of the information is obfuscated if you’re not logged in, making this a less-than-optimal example

The Session

Jeremy Keith's Irish traditional music library. Uses ABC as the primary notation storage format (see sheet-music-formats).

• Homepage
• Example Tune

• Metadata
  • Stored in HTML
    • Title
    • Rhythm (e.g. 'reel')
    • Key Signature
    • Note: Composer not stored as all tunes are assumed to be traditional
  • Stored in the tune
    • Title
    • Meter
    • Default Note Length
    • Rhythm
    • Key Signature
• Representations Offered
  • ABC (Text on a HTML page)
  • Image (GIF)

WaterPigs Hurdy Gurdy Sheet Music Library

Barnaby Walters' Hurdy Gurdy Sheet Music database.

• Homepage
• Example Tune 'Virgo Spendens'

• Metadata
  • Stored in HTML
    • Title
    • Composer
    • Notes
    • Key Signature
    • Time Signature
  • Stored in the tune
    • Title
    • Composer
    • Meter
    • Default Note Length
    • Rhythm
    • Key Signature
    • Notes
• Representations Offered
  • ABC (Text on a HTML page)
  • Lyrics (separate to music) as text on a HTML page
  • SVG (via abcjs javascript plugin) embedded in the web page.

Lyrics and Chords

Sheet music also addresses for lyrics with chords. They are published in a fixed structure and without any semantics (where there are semantics, just the chords, and even then, without any pattern). As a consequence, it is impossible to predict how the text will fit today different screen sizes intelligently, avoiding blanks and scrollbar (regarding smartphones, notebooks, tablets and even TVs).

Some sheet music (tabs, lyrics and chords) sites

• Ultimate Guitar (~300k docs)
  • title, artist, dificulty, chords, verses, album
• CifraClub (~300k docs)
  • title, artist, chords, verses
• e-Chords
  • title, artist, dificulty, chords, verses, album
• Chordie (~10k docs)
  • title, artist, dificulty, chords, verses
• XGuitar (~10k docs)
  • title, artist, chords, verses, album
• Cifras
  • title, artist, chords, verses, album
• PegaCifras (~10k docs)
  • title, artist, chords, verses
• tabizer
  • title, artist, chords, verses
• Ukulele-tabs
  • title, artist, dificulty, chords, verses, album

Analysis of sheet song sites

9 examples

• title 100%
• artist 100%
• chords 100%
• verses 100%
• album 44%
• dificulty 44%

properties VERY common on all examples, but which depends on the user contributor free will, not site

• tabs
• key
• chorus
• bridge
• tuning
• capo