Lyrics

Create, format, timestamp, manage, and export lyrics and chart tabs.

Lyrics in Praxis are a per-song workspace for charts, notes, cues, and alternate arrangements.

What A Tab Can Be

A tab can hold:

plain lyrics
chord charts
instrument-specific parts
rehearsal notes
cue sheets
embedded MIDI instructions

That flexibility is what makes tabs such a central part of Praxis.

Why Tabs Matter

Keep a clean performance tab and a work-in-progress tab.
Keep separate tabs for Guitar, Bass, Keys, or any other instrument.
Keep a backup version before making major edits.
Keep one tab optimized for stage readability and another for arrangement detail.

Tab Management

Click + to create a new tab.
Double-click a tab name to rename it inline.
Right-click a tab to rename or delete it.
Drag tabs to reorder them.

Each tab keeps its own content, timestamps, embedded MIDI, and font mode. PDF score tabs are separate from lyric tabs and are documented on PDF Scores.

Editor Mode

Turn on Edit mode to modify a tab. The editor supports:

structured formatting
chord-aware rendering
color markup
timestamps
embedded MIDI
find and replace

Find and replace supports next, previous, replace, replace all, case-sensitive matching, and regular expressions.

If you are just getting started, plain text tabs are already useful. You do not need markup on day one.

Markup Basics

Praxis supports lightweight musician-friendly markup:

Headings: # through ######
Bold: text
Italic: text
Underline: +text+
Color: {c:color}...{c}
Timestamps: [m:ss], [m:ss.xx], [s.xx]

Writing Chords

Praxis handles several common chart styles:

Lead-sheet style: [G]Hello [D]world
Chord-only line: G D Em C
Bracketed chord-only line: [G] [D] [Em] [C]
Chord-over-lyrics pair: chord line above lyrics
Chord-text line: start a line with backtick to force chord-text formatting

Use Editor > Convert Chords Over to Chords Inline when you want to convert a chord line plus lyric line into inline bracketed chords.

Scroll And Timing

Timestamps support scroll sync and cue timing.

Timestamp mode follows embedded timestamps.
Percent mode uses song duration when timestamps are absent.
Wait/finish settings control when scrolling starts and stops.
Scroll target controls whether active text sits near the top, third, or middle of the view.
Show Scroll Targets in PDF Mode controls whether the PDF guide lines are shown while setting timestamps.

If you are working in a PDF score tab, the same manual timestamping idea applies, but the content is a document view rather than text markup. See PDF Scores for the full workflow.

Embedded MIDI

Lyrics can contain embedded MIDI commands for song-specific automation.

Program Change: PC10 or PC10@2
Control Change: CC69.0 or CC69.0@2

If you do not include a channel suffix, Praxis uses the Default Send Channel from MIDI settings.

Useful tags include:

[midi:PC10,CC69.0] for load-time MIDI
[midi:send-default] to send Default Song MIDI before the tab MIDI when the tab also contains embedded MIDI
[midi@play:PC10] for play
[midi@stop:CC69.0] for stop
[midi@1:23.45:CC69.0] for timed MIDI

Use [midi:send-default] only in tabs that also contain embedded MIDI. If a tab has no embedded MIDI, Default Song MIDI is sent on its own.

Load order is:

Tab embedded load MIDI, if present
Default Song MIDI load, if the tab does not override it
Default Song MIDI first, then tab MIDI, if [midi:send-default] is present in a tab that also has embedded MIDI
Helix Simple Pitch load MIDI last

You can also shift timed MIDI events with [offset:+120] or [offset:-80].

To use this automation with a PDF score, open that PDF in the Player, enable editing, choose MIDI, and import from this lyrics tab. Praxis converts the text commands into a MIDI plan attached to the PDF; later text edits do not silently change the imported copy.

Editor Shortcuts

When the lyrics editor has focus, these shortcuts work:

Command+N apply the last-used template
Command+1 through Command+6 insert headings
Command+B bold
Command+I italic
Command+U underline
Command+7 insert artist
Command+8 insert title
Command+9 insert album
Command+Shift+T insert timecode
Command+Shift+C insert color tag
Command+Shift+M open the MIDI insert dialog

Templates

Praxis supports lyric/tab templates so you can build consistent charts faster.

Create a tab from a template.
Create a tab from the last-used template.
Save the current tab as a reusable template.
Open the Templates folder in Finder or restore the bundled defaults from the Editor menu.

Export Lyrics As PDF

With a text lyrics tab active in the Player, choose File > Export Lyrics as PDF… or press Command+E. Praxis exports the rendered chart, including its current formatting, as a PDF. This command is for text lyrics; an attached PDF score is already a PDF document.

Editing Safety

If enabled in Settings, Praxis asks before deleting a non-empty lyrics tab.

See Also