1 Overview

The smartChord Notepad is a simple but powerful place for everything that keeps your musical life in one spot. Gather chord ideas, lyrics, practice observations, gig reminders, a melody you hummed on the bus — whatever you need to remember. Notes can be plain text, rich HTML, voice input or audio recordings, and they can be linked directly to the songs, patterns and exercises they belong to.

For the official feature overview, see Notepad Overview on smartchord.de.

2 Manage Your Notepads

A notepad is simply a container for related notes. You can keep one giant notepad or split your thoughts across many — one per band, one for song ideas, one for gear notes, whatever matches the way you think. The Folder menu in the top bar is where notepads are created, opened, renamed, saved, shared and marked as favorites.

An empty notepad — ready for its first entry.

The Folder menu — create, open, rename, save, share.

3 Add a Note

Tap the + button in the bottom-right to start a new entry. smartChord asks what kind of note you want: plain text, text from the clipboard, dictated text, or an audio recording. Every note in a notepad is a separate entry — you can mix types freely.

Four ways to add a note — typing is just one of them.

4 The Text Editor

Text notes open in a simple, distraction-free editor. Type anything you like — plain text works, and so do a few HTML tags for bold, italic, colors and more. The top-bar menu gives you Search & replace, font-size settings and the usual editing comforts.

4.1 The inline “Add” menu

A second + button lives on the right edge of the editor. It adds content into the note you are typing:

• HTML block — ready-made layout blocks (tables, lists)
• HTML format — inline formatting like bold, color, size
• Link — a link to a song, pattern, practice, setlist… (see step 7)
• Add speech to text — dictate a passage right where the cursor is
• Word-finder — a rhyme and word helper for lyrics

The editor — plain text plus optional HTML.

The in-editor Add menu — HTML, links, dictation, rhymes.

5 Note Entries: Expand, Dictate, Record

Back in the notepad, every note becomes one entry. Long text entries collapse into a short preview with an arrow — tap to expand, tap again to collapse — so even a big notepad stays scannable.

Expandable entries keep long notes tidy.

5.1 Speech to text

Tap Add speech to text and dictate instead of typing. smartChord uses your device’s speech recognizer, so it works in whatever languages your keyboard supports. Great for capturing a lyric line while your hands are still on the guitar.

5.2 Audio recordings

For melodies, licks or full rehearsal takes, use Add recording. Give the recording a name, pick high or standard quality, and hit the microphone. An audio player appears at the bottom of the notepad as soon as the recording is finished.

Dictate notes hands-free.

Recording an idea — named and in high quality.

Text and audio side by side — play without leaving the note.

6 Notes That Belong to an Item

A lot of your notes belong to something specific — the song you are learning, a chord progression, a practice plan. smartChord links notes and items directly, so a note is only ever one tap away from the thing it describes — and vice versa.

6.1 Create a note from an item

Inside any song, chord progression, drum pattern or other item, open the Folder menu and choose Create note. smartChord opens (or creates) a notepad with the item’s name, adds a fresh note, and pre-fills it with a link back to the item. Tap the link any time to jump to the item; tap the back arrow to return.

Open a song — anything you look at can get a note.

Folder > Create note — same menu everywhere.

The new note already contains the link back.

6.2 The link identifies the note

The link is more than a shortcut — smartChord uses it to identify the note. Open the same song again tomorrow and Create note will re-open the existing note instead of creating a duplicate. Delete the link and the connection is gone.

A notepad named after the item it belongs to.

7 One Note, Many Items

The link mechanism works for every kind of item smartChord stores — songs, chord progressions, drum patterns, strumming patterns, exercises, setlists, custom chords. When two items share a name (say, the song “Giant Rooks – Watershed” and the chord progression “Giant Rooks – Watershed”), they end up in the same notepad. Your notes about the piece stay together, even though the source items are stored in different tools.

A chord progression for the same song…

…lives in the same notepad as the song note.

8 Link From a Note Yourself

You can also build links the other way round — start in a note and point it at an item. This is how you attach the same piece of writing to a practice plan, a setlist and a drum pattern at once.

8.1 The + button in the editor

1. Open any note.
2. Tap the round + button on the right edge of the editor.
3. Choose Link from the Add menu.
4. Pick the item type (Chord progression, Drum pattern, Pattern, Practice, Set list, Song…).
5. Pick the specific item from the list.

smartChord inserts an HTML link exactly where your cursor was. The link both opens the item when tapped and makes the note findable from the item side.

1. Tap the in-editor +.

2. Choose Link.

3. Pick a type.

4. Pick the item.

The resulting links behave exactly like the auto-generated ones — they take you to the item, and the item finds the note again next time you ask for it.

Link inserted at the cursor — same format as the auto links.

Same notepad — song, chord progression and practice.

9 Further Reading

For the full feature reference and the introductory video, see Notepad Overview on smartchord.de.