Hand-checked, not generated

Every card in Songling was put there on purpose, by a person, and says where it came from.

What that means

A progression card carries the chords, the numerals, the word for what each chord does in the line — home, the lift, the shadow, open door — the feelings it actually produces, and the pieces it has been heard in. None of it is spun out of a model. When a card says a progression is the sound of a chorus that lifts and aches at once, that is a claim somebody made and checked.

The library is also audited by machine against its own rules: that every printed chord name matches the notes that sound, that every numeral matches the chord beneath it, and that no card claims a note it doesn't play. Those checks run over all 1,378 progressions, 107 chords and 74 scales after every change.

Is using it cheating?

It's a chord book that plays. Guitarists have had chord books for a century, and pianists had figured bass before that. The work — which progression, in which key, under which melody, arriving where — is still yours; Songling just means you don't have to already know the name of the sound in your head to go and find it.

What it sends

Almost nothing. Songling has no account, and works with no internet connection at all. Your songs are saved on your own computer and are never uploaded. Once a day at most, it asks this website what the current version is — a plain request for a public file, the same one everybody gets, with nothing about you attached — and you can switch that off in Settings › About. The privacy page says it in full.

Who makes it

Songling is made by Pyrokinesis Ltd, a company registered in New Zealand. It's small: one person writing it, and a lot of hours listening to chords. If something is wrong, or a card is mistaken, write to support@songling.app — it reaches the person who made it.