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Part-markup-bar and chordsheet

Part-markup-bar and chordsheet

Understand the song structure at a glance with the colour part-markers

The part-markup bar is displayed right below the waveform of the standard audio player on wikiloops.
It allows to visualize the order, possible repetitions of parts and the duration of each part in a simple way:
The coulor markers may be aligned with the waveform of the track, so whenever the player position bar reaches a different colour mark, you will know that there is a change coming up.
These colour markers can only be added by the musician who uploaded the track, either right during the upload procedure or added later via the track editing page.
There are no fixed rules on which colour to use to mark up the various possible parts, and it is up to the user to keep it simple and just mark up the changes of chorus and verse, or to use the markup to hint at smaller details as tricky breaks, unforeseeable C parts or the part of the track where the hot solo is taking place.

If you are using a mouse or touchpad, you may preview the chord information supplied for each colour marker by "hovering" your mouse-pointer over the colour markers.
The parts name & chord info is then displayed in a pop-up bubble below the player.

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Chordsheets of wikiloops backingtracks

Every track on wikiloops has the option to attach some written chord information to give people who would like to play along to the track some idea what is happening harmonically.

Spotting the chords tab
Tracks which offer such chord information will display the "Chords"-Tab in the "Track-Info"-panel on the full page or an enabled chords-icon in the player on user profiles.
The complete chord sheet is displayed once you open the chords-tab.
Please do make use of the "Thanks for this"-button to show some appreciation for the additional effort put into outlining the chords.

Focus on tracks which do offer chords
You may make use of the tracks-with-chords-only focus offered in the track search tool to be sure the tracks you are browsing will have at least some basic chord information available.

The nature of chord information on wikiloops
When working with wikiloops chordsheets it is important to realize one thing:
In most cases, the uploader of a track or remix will enter the chords which he or she played in the recorded track.
So, these chords are more of a helpful tool to let you quickly understand what the uploader is doing, but should not be mistaken as instructions what you are supposed to play!

There is a simple trick to turn wikiloops chordsheets into exact instructions what to play, which we will explain with a simple example:
Let's assume you are out to play guitar,
and you are looking for drums+bass backing tracks to play along to, but are also in need of some chordsheet to tell you what to play on your guitar.
Here is how to go about, step by step:

1
Head for the track search tool by clicking on SEARCH in the top navigation and then selecting "Backingtracks to jam & collaborations to join"
2
Start a search for tracks involving drums, bass and guitar, and check the "must have chords" focus
3
Now, only visit tracks in which the guitar was added last. The easiest way to observe that is to look at the order of the instrument icons displayed in the search results, you will only want to check track which display the guitar icon on the very right of the displayed instruments.
4
Visit the spotted tracks which match the above criteria until you spot one which you would like to try to play on guitar yourself
5
"Mute" the guitar player with the mute button offered in the "musicians"-tab, now you will hear the drums+bass version
6
Switch to the chords-tab and play exactly what the (now muted) guitar player has entered.
7
You may always un-mute the guitar player in between to have another listen what he or she has been doing.
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Entering and editing chordsheets

Chordsheets can be entered during the track upload procedure and edited via the edit track page.
Chordsheets are "inherited" by remixes,
meaning that once someone has entered some chord information, that chordsheet will be offered on remixes of the track as well, but it may be altered by the remixing musicians.

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