By Tony Attwood
If you are a regular reader of Untold Dylan, you’ll know that one of the things we like to do in the reviews is comment on the musical structure as much as the lyrics.
But, of course, I know it can be most frustrating when I start rambling on in one of my reviews about the unusual chords and rhythms Bob uses in a particular piece. Especially if you’re wanting to play along but don’t know a particular chord, or haven’t got the rhythm or melody in your head.
I’ve never known how to resolve this on the website until seeing the Chordify website, which provides the technological answer.
Quite simply you type in the name of the song you want to play along with, and it brings up a screen which shows the guitar chords, with the graphic layout in case it is a chord that is unfamiliar to you.
Then you click on the recording of the song (top right in the screen), it starts playing, and the chords being used, complete with the finger positions, move across the screen. You hear the music, see the chords and can play along at the same time.
I really haven’t seen anything like this before (and in case you are interested there are thousands of songs by many other artists also on the site), and I really do think it is a great idea.
Better still, it allows you free access, so if there is a song you want to play, just type in the name of the song, and you are there, ready to go.
You can also upload your own songs to the service so that you have a record of what you have done, and can share it with other people – which is particularly helpful if you are in a band.
The site is at https://chordify.net/ and I really do recommend it for anyone who wants to play a song and can’t quite get the rhythm or is not fully familiar with all the chords within the song. Also, if you are a parent with a son or daughter at home wanting to get to grips with the guitar, this is really going to make it much easier for them to learn, and more likely that they will continue.
And just in case you are not yet convinced, there is one other link I would suggest – not least because I got so carried away with using the main part of the program I didn’t get around to looking at what else is on the site until some time later.
When you’ve finished looking at what is available through the link above go to https://chordify.net/pages/ – and there you will see four more options. The one that particularly fascinated me was “Academy”. I won’t spoil it for you by spelling out what is there, but if you are going on the site do spend a moment on that link. I think you might well enjoy it.
As you may know we don’t recommend other websites very often on Untold Dylan, but this one I did enjoy, and I do hope it resolves any issues that have arisen when I start rambling on about Bdim or F#m7.
Have fun!