Songs Index: Find the song you want to play
The Songs Index is where you find songs. There are several thousand of them, so the page gives you a few different ways in.
If you know the song you want, search for it. If you are browsing, narrow the list down to the sort of songs you are after: a particular style, a particular key, or songs with only a few chords.
💡 Handy hints: Throughout this page, look for our Handy hints. These practical suggestions come from helpful feedback from our users and point out useful shortcuts and small details that can make finding songs easier.
Set your instrument once and forget it
The Instrument box at the top left is not a filter. It does not change which songs you see. It decides which chord diagrams appear when you open a song.
Choose soprano ukulele, baritone, guitar, banjo, mandolin or whichever you play, and every song you open will show the chord shapes for that instrument.
💡 Handy hint: Your choice is remembered, so you only need to set it once. If the chord diagrams ever look wrong for your instrument, this is the box to check.
Narrow the list to the songs you want
Four boxes across the top let you cut a list of several thousand songs down to something you can look through. The list refreshes as soon as you change any of them.
| Box | What it does |
|---|---|
| Category | Choose Songs for the full library, or one of the smaller collections. The number in brackets tells you how many songs are in each. |
| Type | Filter by style: Blues, Rock, Folk and so on. Choose All Song Types to see everything. |
| Chords | Show only songs with a certain number of chords, either up to that number or exactly that number. |
| Key | Show only songs in a particular key. |
💡 Handy hint: If you are still learning, set Chords to three or fewer. It turns an overwhelming list into one you can play from tonight.
💡 Handy hint: Key lets you pick more than one at a time, so you can ask for songs in C or E together rather than one after the other.
💡 Handy hint: Choose Songs-new in the Category box to see what has been added recently.
Search when you know what you are looking for
Type into the search box and the list starts narrowing as you go. There is no need to press anything.
By default the search looks at the title and artist. Two tick boxes change that:
| Box | What it does |
|---|---|
| +Info/Song | Also searches the writer, the words of the songs and the extra information. |
| Exact | Looks for exactly what you typed, rather than anything close to it. |
Left alone, the search is forgiving. It will find what you meant even when you have not quite typed it, so searching for beatels still finds the Beatles.
💡 Handy hint: A forgiving search occasionally returns something unexpected, because it matches those letters anywhere. Searching for abba will also turn up cabbage. If you are getting odd results, tick Exact and search again.
Sort the list to suit what you are doing
Click one of the sort options above the song list.
| Sort by | Useful when |
|---|---|
| Title | You know the song and want to find it alphabetically. This is the normal view. |
| Artist | You want everything by one performer. |
| Added | You want to see what is new on the site. |
| Updated | You want to check whether a song you play has been corrected recently. |
Jump to a letter instead of scrolling
Click any letter in the alphabet bar to move straight to that part of the list. On a list this long it is a good deal quicker than scrolling.
Open a song
Songs appear as boxes you can click. Clicking one opens it with the chord diagrams for the instrument you chose.
Each song shows how many chords it uses, so you can see at a glance whether it is a simple one or something that will take a bit of work.
See also: