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August 6, 2005 / Filed under: Guitar, Music, Tablature

Ever since I learned how to play the guitar, and now that I am getting better at the keyboard - I’ve wanted a place to express my latest musical studies, as well as document the chords and/or sheet music for songs I just learned, or in the process of learning.

I’ve tried doing it on this very site (Guitar category; Tablature category), but it requires to much effort to format sheet music or chords for the web, and then try to display it within the current flow of my site.

Sometimes I’ll be listening to music, or a song will pop in my head, and I’ll pick up my guitar, or scoot over to my keyboard, and try to quickly capture the chords, that are "crystal clear" in my head.

Once I capture the chords, I try to figure out the tempo, and piece it all together.

I’d like a place to record this information, so I can always look back at my "virtual music notes collection."

There are so many songs that I’ve played, which now I totally forgot the details of.

Printed sheet music

Sheet music is the complete musical arrangement for a song. It helps immensly to find complete sheet music for whatever song I am learning. But, that’s easier "said" than "done." There are a few good sheet music web sites, but their catalogs don’t seem too deep - and there’s no way they could possibly have every song that I desire to play - out of the blue.

Not to mention, most sheet music sites charge money (obviously), but sometimes I just want to gather the chords and tempo - and I don’t really need to purchase it. (But, trust me, I have purchased a lot of sheet music, over the years.)

And, worst of all, there is still no way to electronically archive the sheet music downloaded from these sites, because they require you to print your sheet music, at the time of purchase.

Which is fine... I mean, who looks at sheet music, on their computer, while they’re playing? Most musicians prefer sheet music printed, so they can take it to their instrument.

But none of this solves my problems.

I’d like to buy more sheet music from these sites, if only it wasn’t apparent that all this printing will soon result in volumes of physical sheet music, which I’m totally against. I’m against anything that is paper, and requires storage space.

Forget it. Most paper documents can be scanned in, or received electronically, and filed that way. That’s the way I live.

The main point

So... to sum this up - I wish there was a simple way to add chords or even complete sheet music to a web page, without requiring a lot of work. After all, as quickly as the song pops in my head, and I find the chords and tempo - I need to move onto the next part of my day. I can’t sit there all day formatting the sheet music for the web.

I just want to jot it down, and move on.