How to get new songs
1 Overview
The Songbook is empty because of license issues — and also because of a simple question: which songs should the Songbook contain? Everybody would expect different songs. The solution is the internet. There are excellent resources out there, and smartChord finds your songs right where they live.
Finding the right song with the right chords or tab used to mean browsing a dozen websites, fighting cookie banners, and copying text into some other app. The smartChord Songbook fixes that with its built-in Internet song search: one query, dozens of catalogs, chords and tabs extracted straight into the Songbook — ready for offline use and with fingerings matched to your instrument.
2 Start a New Internet Search
From the Songbook, opening the Internet song search takes just two taps: open the Folder menu in the top bar, then pick New → Internet search.
The Songbook home screen
Folder menu — tap New
Pick Internet search
3 Enter Your Query
Type the artist name, the song title, or both. You can also tap the microphone to enter the query by voice. Tap Search to let your preferred search engine hunt through the internet song catalogs.
The Internet song search screen
Type artist and/or title, then tap Search
chords, tab, or -site:example.com — to narrow down the results.
4 Browse the Results and Preview the Song
smartChord opens the search result inside its own browser. Tap the link that looks most promising — the app extracts the chords or tab from the page and shows you a clean preview.
- If the preview shows the song you want, tap OK to take it into your Songbook.
- If not, use the Back button to return to the results and try another page.
- In rare cases extraction is incomplete — use the Reload button to retry.
Search results inside smartChord
Preview — tap the check mark to keep the song
5 Save the Song for Offline Use
Once the song is in the Songbook, smartChord automatically picks the best fingerings for your instrument and tuning — guitar, bass, ukulele, mandolin, banjo, or any of the other supported instruments. The chord diagrams match what you actually play, even if the song was originally written for a different instrument.
To keep the song available offline, open the Folder menu again and tap Save. Without this step the song stays in memory only and will be lost when the Songbook closes.
The imported song with fingerings for your instrument
6 Supported Song Catalogs
smartChord explicitly supports 24+ chord and tab websites — including the biggest names in the business:
Because the search uses a real search engine, you are never locked to a single source — if one site doesn’t have the version you’re after, another one probably does.
7 Tailor the Search to Your Taste
The gear icon on the Internet song search screen opens a handful of settings that let you customise how the search behaves.
7.1 Song content type
Switch between Chords and TAB. The first returns chord sheets with lyrics; the second returns guitar tablature.
7.2 Search engine
Pick the search engine you trust most: Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Qwant, Yandex, Baidu. The same query can behave very differently from one engine to another, so it pays to try an alternative if the first one comes up empty.
7.3 Internet chord sites
Include or exclude individual chord sites. Useful when one provider consistently returns the cleanest sheets for your style or when you want to skip a site that keeps showing ads you don’t care for.
7.4 Show internet address
Toggle the visibility of the current page URL while browsing — handy when you want to see or copy the original source.
8 Keep Your Favourite Pages with Bookmarks
If you always return to the same song pages, use the built-in Bookmarks tool. You can store personal song URLs, organise them in folders, and open them again with a single tap — perfect for pages that you want to revisit but haven’t imported into the Songbook yet.
Click on the bookmarks in the title bar to open the bookmark tool
9 Tips & Tricks
- On smaller phones, rotate to landscape while browsing — it makes search result pages far easier to read.
- Add the word
chordsortabto the query if your preferred content type isn’t the top hit. - Can’t find a song via Google? Try DuckDuckGo or Yandex — different engines index different pages.
- Always tap Save after importing a song — otherwise it won’t be there when you come back.
- The Songbook works offline: once imported, songs, chords, and fingerings are available without an internet connection.
SongSelect by CCLI
The internet search feature also supports SongSelect by CCLI, which provides access to over 100,000 worship songs. It is seamlessly integrated into the search function, but you will need to register for SongSelect. Songs in the public domain are available with a free license, while copyrighted songs require a license. The song search will display all the songs that your license entitles you to. When available, you will receive the ChordPro version of the song, including song information like author, copyright and so on. Otherwise, you will get the plain text version. If you prefer PDF files, you can download them and use them in the Set List.
Please note:
- You must log into SongSelect before the internet search can retrieve songs from SongSelect.
- If you want SongSelect to be your only source for songs, you can limit the search to SongSelect by selecting it in the ‘Chord Page’ settings.
- Adding “SongSelect” to the keyword search will prioritize SongSelect over other chord pages.
- You can reach SongSelect directly via the following bookmark: https://songselect.ccli.com/
PDF or image files with songs or sheet music
The songbook supports plain text, such as .TAB, .TXT, and .PRO formats. To add PDF or image files with songs or sheet music, use the Set List.
Bookmarks for your inspiration
If you don’t know what to play, get inspired by the top-rated songs. Click on the bookmarks in the title bar to open the bookmark tool. It lists some predefined song pages with the top-rated songs and artists.
Use the bookmark tool to save your personal song pages. You can organize your bookmarks in folders. The predefined bookmarks are in the folder smartChord. The internet song search screen has an optional internet address field, which shows the internet address of the currently browsed page. To the right is a bookmark button to create a bookmark for the current page.
Song not detected
smartChord supports websites that provide songs in plain text or ChordPro format, where the song lyrics are clearly distinguishable from other content on the page. However, songs presented as images, PDFs, or sheet music cannot be detected.
Here’s an improved version of your text:
In rare cases, a song on a webpage may not be detected. It’s always a good idea to try using the reload button and reopening the page. Please be patient, as it may take a few seconds for the song page to be evaluated.
If this does not help, select the song text and use the context menu ‘Create song’ to create a song from the selected text.
If the result is as expected, click on the ‘Checkmark’ button to show the song in the Songbook.
If the result isn’t as expected, click on the ‘x’ button to see the original page.
If you cannot get the song, try another site. Normally, each song can also be found in other song catalogs.
Settings
Song content type
Song content type allows one to search for a Chords page or a page with tablature (TAB).
Internet chord sites
The following internet chord sites are explicitly supported, but there are thousands of other sites that will work too. Select ‘-‘ if you don’t want to limit the search to one chord page. If you don’t like a chord page, just add it to the ‘exclude’ list.
amdm.ru
- Extensive Russian and Eastern European song collection
- Strong catalog of regional folk music
- Includes chord diagrams with Russian notation
- Simple, text-based format that’s easy to parse
acordesweb.com
- Comprehensive Spanish and Latin American music library
- Detailed strumming patterns indicated
- Excellent for regional Latin genres (flamenco, bachata, etc.)
- Often includes rhythm notations
azchords.com
- Organized by artist and alphabetically
- Clean interface with minimal advertisements
- Moderate-sized library focused on popular songs
- Includes difficulty ratings for many songs
bigbasstabs.com
- Specialized in bass guitar tablature
- Includes detailed fingering information
- Features both standard and bass-specific notation
- Covers advanced techniques like slapping and popping
chordie.com
- Community-reviewed content for higher accuracy
- Offers printable PDF versions
- Multiple versions of popular songs
- Tags songs by difficulty level
chords-and-tabs.net
- Multiple instrument versions for the same song
- Verified tabs marked separately
- Includes video lesson links when available
- Clean formatting with clear section labels
cifraclub.com
- Extensive Brazilian and Portuguese music collection
- High-quality, staff-reviewed content
- Visual chord charts included
- Indicates capo positions clearly
cifras.com
- Strong Latin American music focus
- Includes regional instrument variations (cavaquinho, etc.)
- Clear verse/chorus structure formatting
- Active community corrections system
e-chords.com
- Interactive chord diagrams
- Alternate tuning support and notation
- Clear indication of song structure
- Multiple versions with different difficulty levels
guitaretab.com
- Focus on accurate guitar solos and lead parts
- Timing notation included
- Indicates techniques like hammer-ons, pull-offs
- Good archive of classic rock guitar solos
guitartabs.cc
- Simple, text-based format
- Fast-loading minimalist interface
- Categorizes by music genre
- Includes some rare and hard-to-find songs
guitartabsexplorer.com
- Extensive archive of older/classic songs
- Well-organized by decades and genres
- Includes historical information about songs
- Good for finding obscure tracks
mandotabs.com
- Specialized mandolin tablature
- Includes mandolin-specific techniques
- Genre-focused (bluegrass, folk, Celtic)
- Clear fingering directions
boiteachansons.net
- Strong focus on French chanson and European songs
- Lyric-focused with accurate text
- Cultural context notes included
- Regional variant notations
songselect.ccli.com
- Professional-grade worship and Christian music
- Licensed and legal content
- Original key information included
- Complete song arrangements with all sections
tabs4acoustic.com
- Focused on fingerstyle arrangements
- Detailed right-hand finger patterns
- Alternate tuning variations
- Specialized in acoustic-specific techniques
ukutabs.com
- Ukulele-specific chord diagrams
- Different ukulele tuning support (GCEA, DGBE, etc.)
- Strumming pattern notation
- Beginner-friendly chord substitutions
ultimate-guitar.com
- Enormous library covering most genres
- User ratings system for tab quality
- Multiple verified versions of popular songs
- Active community with frequent updates
yourchords.com
- Mobile-friendly formatting
- Focus on beginners with simplified versions
- Clear section markers (intro, verse, chorus)
- Word-by-word chord placement
Search engines
Songbook supports a lot of search engines. They are essential to finding your songs. Each of them has different algorithms to rank the chord pages. In the case that your preferred internet site for chords is not listed by the default search engine, just switch to a different one like:
▫ baidu.com
▫ bing.com
▫ duckduckgo.com
▫ ecosia.org
▫ google.com
▫ qwant.com
▫ yandex.ru
Show internet address
Enable Show internet address if you want to see the pages that are used.
