The Grigson Language
Grigson is a plain-text format for writing chord charts, named after Lionel Grigson, author of The Jazz Chord Book. It is designed so that the source text closely resembles the rendered output, and so that the form of a song (AABA, verse/chorus, 12-bar blues, etc.) is apparent at a glance.
Grigson source files use the .chart extension.
Philosophy
- Plain text that resembles output. The pipe character
|represents a bar line. Time signatures look like time signatures. Chord names are written as you would write them on a lead sheet. - Left-aligned, ragged right. Rows render at their natural width. A bar with four beats takes up twice as much space as a bar with two beats — the space a passage occupies on the page reflects how long it lasts in time.
- Source-driven row layout. Each line in the source becomes a row in the output by default. The HTML renderer's
barsPerLineandmaxBarsPerLineoptions can override this. - Simple rhythm. Grigson does not use a rhythm staff or per-chord duration notation. Rhythmic information is conveyed through beat-cell notation (see below).
- Key per section. Songs that modulate between sections (e.g. verse in Eb, chorus in Ab) can specify a key for each section independently.
Syntax reference
- Front matter — file structure and YAML metadata fields
- Sections — section labels and key annotations
- Bars — time signatures and barline symbols
- Chords — chord symbols, beat cells, simile marks, multi-bar rests
- Repeats — repeat barlines, volta brackets, and what is out of scope
Examples
Browse the Songbook for complete reference charts demonstrating the language.