Lyrics in Strum Machine

First, let’s get this out of the way: Strum Machine doesn’t include lyrics with any of its built-in songs “out of the box”. Lyrics are complicated – they are protected by copyright (unlike chord progressions) and there are many other reasons why it’d be hard to offer such a feature, so we’ve decided not to pursue this for the time being.

That said, you can BYOL (bring your own lyrics) to any song in Strum Machine. There are two ways to do this:

1. Add lyrics to the Notepad. There’s a button labeled “Notepad” below each song that can hold any text you like. You can simply copy lyrics from another website and paste them into the Notepad, or write them by hand if none are available to copy. The contents of the Notepad are specific to that user (and song) and will not be visible to anyone else. Learn more about the Notepad.

2. Link to lyrics in the References menu. Next to the Notepad is the References menu, where you can link to any website you want, including lyrics sites. I’ve linked to a few lyrics sites in the References menu on some songs (the “References” link will be bold if references are available) and you can add your own links there as well. Learn more about the References menu.

Lyrics features that may come in the future

We’ve received multiple requests for the ability to add lyrics “in line” with the chords in Strum Machine. This is not yet possible, but at some point we plan to explore this possibility and see how feasible it would be.

In addition, a future update will allow you to put the Notepad and the chord chart side-by-side, which will make it easier to see both at the same time. Stay tuned!