Swifty Chords

This is a Swift library that can generate CAShapeLayers for any chord within it's database. All you need to do is supply a Key (C, C#, etc) and a suffix (Major, Minor, sus4, etc) to find the appropriate chord. Each chord comes with a few variants.

The database is pulled from another project I found a while ago, but cannot remember where that was. Please do not rely 100% on this data, as I have found that a few chords are incorrect. If you find any of your own, please open a PR correcting these.

This library is currently in Beta. Everything works, and the drawing speeds are fine, but there is lots of room for improvement.

I am using this library in my music study app "Mustud" with no problems at all.

Requirements

• iOS 13+
• macOS 10.12+ -> It works, but you'll need to flip the results since it uses iOS drawing coordinates.
• Xcode 11+

Installation

Only supports Swift Package Manager at this time.

Usage

Setup

import SwiftyChords

Search

Get all Chords

Chords.guitar

Filter by Key

Returns all chords based on C#

Chords.guitar.matching(key: .cSharp)

Filter by Suffix

Returns all major seventh chords in the database across all keys.

Chords.guitar.matching(suffix: .majorSeven)

Filter by Key and Suffix

Returns all C Major chords. These will be in order of position on the fretboard, starting at the nut.

Chords.guitar.matching(key: .c).matching(suffix: .major)

Filter by Suffix Group

Returns all suspended chords in the database along with their variants such as sus2, sus4

Chords.guitar.matching(group: .suspended)

Display

Swifty Chords suports a number of alternative texts you can use in your UI including an accessibility text-to-speech friendly variant. Display texts from both Key and Suffix properties can be combined to complete the chord name.

let cMajSevenFlatFive = Chords.guitar.matching(key: .c).matching(suffix: .majorSevenFlatFive)
print(cMajSevenFlatFive.suffix.display.accessible) // " major seven flat five"
print(cMajSevenFlatFive.suffix.display.short)      // "Maj7b5"
print(cMajSevenFlatFive.suffix.display.symbolized) // "Maj⁷♭⁵" 
print(cMajSevenFlatFive.suffix.display.altSymbol)  // "M⁷♭⁵"

Drawing

There are a number of ways to use the CAShapeLayer. You can add it directly to a view, or convert it to an Image.

To use it, we just need a chord!

let chordPosition = Chords.guitar.matching(key: .c).matching(suffix: .major).first!
let frame = CGRect(x: 0, y: 0, width: 100, height: 150) // I find these sizes to be good.
let layer = chordPosition.chordLayer(rect: frame, chordName: .init(show: true, key: .symbol, suffix: .symbolized))
imageView.image = layer.image() // might be expensive. Use Layers when possible while drawing to a view. Images are better if you plan to send them outside the app.

Arguments

rect: The area for which the chord will be drawn to. This determines it's size. Chords have a set aspect ratio, and so the size of the chord will be based on the shortest side of the rect.

showFingers: Determines if the finger numbers should be drawn on top of the dots. Default true.

showChordName Determines if the chord name should be drawn above the chord. Choosing this option will reduce the size of the chord chart slightly to account for the text. Default true. The display mode can be set for Key and Suffix. Default rawValue

forPrint: If set to true the diagram will be colored Black, ignoring the users device settings. If set to false, the color of the diagram will match the system label color. Dark text for light mode, and Light text for dark mode. Default false.

mirror: For left-handed users. This will flip the chord along its y axis. Default false.