Welcome to Jens Lyrics-Editor

This editor helps you write lyrics for songs. This is version 1.2 of the Lyrics-Editor.

This document begins with a short introduction to songwriting. At the bottom of the document, you will find instructions for using this application.

Introduction to syllables

I got most of the information in this section from the beginning of this YouTube video by Holistic Songwriting and the Point Blank Music School Blog.

The typical structure for a song is Intro, Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus. Sometimes, the Choruses are preceded by Pre-Chorus sections.

Usually, the Choruses have identical lyrics. In the Lyrics-Editor, this is done by selecting the "same-as" dropdown menu. You do not have to enter the same lyrics several times for identical lyric sections.

Many times, each section has these lengths and purposes:

• Intro, 4 bars. Introduction to the song. Sets up the scene.
• Verse 1, 16 bars; Verse 2, 8 bars. The verse often tells the story of the song. It can describe the situation. Sometimes, each verse advances the story. If there are more verses, then the last verse is often shorter.
• Chorus, 8 bars. The chorus is the song's peak, where the audience sings along. It can be seen as the most essential part of the song. Sometimes, it is called Hook.
• Pre-Chorus, 4 bars. Sometimes, the Pre-Chorus is used to make the transition from verse to chorus easier.
• Bridge, 8 bars. This can be seen as a specialized pre-chorus intended to build tension in the song, heightening the suspense before the chorus.

How many syllables can you fit in a bar?

The information in this section is primarily sourced from the YouTube video by ColeMizeStudios.

The reasons the number of syllables does not matter are that:

1. Syllables are not all of equal sound length. Besides that, there are stressed and unstressed syllables that interact with the song's rhythm.
2. The length of a bar depends on the song's tempo. This determines how much time is spent within each bar and how much time is spent on the syllables. That said, if Verse 1 is twice as long as Verse 2, you can adjust the number of syllables to that.
3. The more syllables you put in a bar, the more aggressive it will sound. More space in a bar gives the song a more gentle sound.

There are three ways to fill a bar

1. The syllable density.
2. Sustain, how long a syllable is held. You could choose to sing it longer just for the effect.
3. Spaces, pauses, breathing, and so on. Sometimes, this is added to give the listener time to reflect on the song. It can give a live element to the song.

Common syllable counts per bar:

• Rap: 10 – 13 syllables or more are usually faster songs with a more aggressive sound.
• Regular pop songs: 7 -11 syllables. Bars with fewer syllables can be filled with oohs, aahs, etc.

In conclusion, the number of syllables is not an exact factor in a good song. The algorithm used to count syllables in this program is a work in progress. If you notice an error in the count, please let me know, and I will correct it. Please send an email to me. Please send me a DM via the BlueSky platform.

How to use the Lyrics-Editor

The word box

When you start the editor for the first time, you notice that the cursor is placed in a rectangle with an orange border around it. The orange color indicates that the box has focus. When it lacks focus, the border is blue. On the right side of the text box, there is an integrated button with the text ◇. This button activates functions to carry out for a word. More about the word actions later.

The song starts with one empty word box. As you type the text of the word, it fills the input of the word box.

A new word box appears after the first box when you type a space. The words appear inside a line box, and at the top of the line box, you see the line number and the number of syllables you have typed so far for that line.

When pressing the Backspace key in a word control, the characters are removed. The word box is removed when the backspace key is pressed in an empty word box.

The line box

The word boxes are inside a line box. A line box contains the text 'Line' followed by the line number. Line numbers increase over all sections of the song. Next is the syllable count, indicating the number of syllables in a line. Finally, there is a pattern letter. More about that later.

On all platforms, you get a new line when you press the Enter key on the last word of the line. When you press Enter/Return for the first word of the line, you get a line before the current line. When pressing the Backspace key in the last word box of the line, the line is removed.

You will notice that words with more syllables are wider as you enter words. The width of the word control is adjusted to the number of syllables. This way, you can see how lines line up visually. This is a key feature of this editor.

The section box

The line boxes are inside a section box. It has the text Section followed by the section number. There is a dropdown for selecting the section type. After the dropdown, you see the excerpt of the section. This is usually the first couple of words of the first line. This is so that you can recognize what the section is about.

Next is the "same-as" dropdown. In that dropdown, you can indicate that a section is the exact repetition of another section. But to use this, you need to enter more sections in the song.

You get a new section by pressing Shift+Enter on a desktop computer and iPhone/iPad. On Android, shift+enter is not working. When pressing shift+enter at the first word of a line, you get a section before the current section.

You find a button with three dots after the same-as dropdown in the section box. This button opens a dialog with actions for creating and removing sections. Android users can use this method to create sections. There, you will also find a button that will merge two sections.

Song name and maintenance

You will find a text field at the top of the window where you can enter the song's name. After that field, you can find a row of buttons:

• The Save button saves the song in your local storage. On a desktop computer (in Chrome), if you press F12, activate the Application tab, and then select Local storage, you will find the JSON objects of the songs as they are stored on your system. The song is compressed, so you will only see the compression data. When the save operation is complete, a dialog box appears, stating, "The song is saved correctly." If you don't see that dialog, press the button more thoroughly.
• The Open… button displays the songs available in the local storage. In the table, it is also possible to delete songs. In this dialog, you also find a text field for JSON data. When you paste the song structure in JSON format (see copy below), the song will be imported via JSON.
• Press the button New to create a new song.
• The button Copy… opens a dialog with the option to copy the song in various ways:
• There is a button to copy the song in Suno.ai format. The copy is placed in the clipboard memory.
• There is a button for the Musix Match format. Musix Match does not allow for punctuation marks at the end of lines, so those are removed. They have the hash sign for section markers, etc.
• It is possible to get the internal structure of a song in the form of JSON. If you would like to continue working on the song on another computer, you can send the JSON text there on that computer. That way, the song is imported entirely.
• Rhymes... This button opens a dialog, allowing you to adjust the rhyme patterns. More about them will be discussed in the next section of this document.
• The Help... button opens a dialog with this text.

Rhymes and Rhyme Scheme / Rhyme Patterns

I found the information in this section from this website: https://www.ascap.com/help/career-development/15-rhyme-schemes-jordan-reynolds.

The most well-known rhyme form is the perfect rhyme. It has the same consonants and vowel structures at the end of the words. There are other forms of rhymes, such as the family rhyme. It keeps the vowels from the same family of plosives, fricatives, and nasals. What you use is up to you. In this editor, the likeness factor of the rhyme is called rhyme rating, a value given in percentage. A perfect rhyme is 100%. For lesser rhyme forms, the percentage is lower.

You can rhyme any word with any other word, even inside a line. The most common is to rhyme the end of the line. In the lyrics editor, there is support for looking up rhyme words at the end of lines. There is currently no support for rhyme word lookup inside a line.

So, what word should rhyme with what other word? That is the end of the line rhyme pattern. There are various common ways to do this, and when you start the lyrics editor for a new song, the default pattern is ABAB. That means if you have a section with four lines, the third line rhymes with the first, and the fourth line rhymes with the second line.

This is also indicated for each line. At the top of each line, you will find the text pattern letter.

To configure the rhyme patterns, click the Rhymes… button at the top of the window. You will be presented with a dialog, allowing you to configure your desired pattern for the various sections. Use the dropdown menu to get examples of known patterns. Edit the pattern in the textbox.

Now that you have the patterns configured, you can start looking up the words. Click on the word action button ◇ for the last word of a line to look up the rhyme. Press that button to look up the rhyme words for the corresponding word. Pressing Add will add a new word with the selected rhyme. Pressing Set will set the rhyme word in the last control.

Pressing on the word action button ◇ for earlier words will activate the synonym lookup functionality.

Good luck!