beaTunes News

Wouldn't it be nice to automatically extract chords from any song? Or have some application display chords as subtitles for YouTube music videos? Perhaps loop a certain section, so you can practice playing it on the guitar?

Well you're in luck, the website of the Dutch startup Chordify.net does just that.

I met Bas de Haas, the guy responsible for the chord recognition part, a couple of years ago in Utrecht (NL), where he received his PhD for work on music information retrieval. Obviously his work was fruitful. But not only the raw transcription part works really well on Chordify. The user experience is thought through exceptionally well. Being able to simply watch the YouTube video in sync with a marker on a music sheet is just fantastic. Plus: It's pretty. Often times you see original cover art of emerging artists as background wallpaper. That's no accident. If you happen to play in a band and are looking to promote it... contact them, they might just put your cover on the site for free. "No strings attached."

How does this relate to beaTunes? Starting with version 4.0.13, you can right-click on any song, choose Open in... > Chordify and open the corresponding Chordify page (if the song is also on YouTube, Deezer or Soundcloud). It really couldn't be any easier to find those chords.

I hope you enjoy this neat little feature, which opens up a great website for you. As you will see right away—Chordify is built with a lot of care and attention to detail. Creating this connection has been a pleasure for me. I'm sure using it will be fun for you as well.

Labels: Chordify, TipsAndTricks