Zach's Songbook
Songs for Folks. Songs I like to play, the way I like to play 'em
About
I noticed that lot of times when people would come over to play music, there was a lot of time spent looking up chords and lyrics. And since it's folk music, most of the time the version on the internet would different from the version I know, which would cause a bit of confusion.
I made this songbook to remedy this situation (and partly to test out my fancy double-sided printer.) The songs are entered in a simple, text-based format for chords and lyrics, and abc notation for the melody. Then a hodge-podge of ruby scripts converts them to typst files, which then turns it into this fancy-looking pdf.
Download
You can get the latest versions here:
- Zach's Song Book: Full page format for easy reading on a computer or mobile device, or for printing and laminating.
- Zach's Songbooklet: Half page format neatly arranged to be printed on a double-sided printer, and then folded down the middle. Multipage songs all start on the left, so there's no page turning in the middle of a song.
Browse
You can browse Zach's Songbook Online!
(Thanks to Gitlab for providing Source Control, CI, and static web page hosting!)
Make your own!
You can find all the code hosted on Gitlab
You can easily create your own songbook by forking the Demo Songbook repository and using the WebIDE editor. No need to install anything or do any coding!
Booklet Binding
The best way to keep a booklet together after you've printed it out, is to run it through a sewing machine. It works great!
Banjo Simulator
The Banjo Simulator is a nifty little javascript app I wrote to help me develop my songbook. I found that it's easier to remember how to play the banjo frets than it is to figure out how all the notes on my own. Hence this little app that lets me play the banjo, and converts it into ABC notation and sheet music.