# Kytario

> Kytario is a multilingual web songbook for guitarists, choirs, and bands. Users write songs in a lightweight chord-and-lyrics markup, group them into songbooks and playlists, perform them live on phones, tablets, or projectors, and export print-ready A5 PDFs.

The app is available at https://kytario.com. It is free to use. Public content (songs, songbooks, news, docs) is browsable without an account; creating and editing content requires a Google sign-in. Songbooks have a private edit token and a public read-only URL, so they can be shared with anyone.

Kytario is localized into eight languages: Czech (default), English, Polish, Slovak, German, French, Swedish, and Hantec (`cs-x-br`, the Brno dialect of Czech). The English routes listed below are served from the root (no `/en/` prefix); other locales use a prefix and may use localized path segments (for example `/songs` is `/skladby` in Czech).

## Layout modes

Every song renders in one of two layouts, toggled from the bottom menu and auto-selected from device and orientation:

- **Two-column ("desktop") layout** - the default; fits a whole song on one screen without scrolling, and is also what the A5 PDF is printed from. Sections written with a `+` prefix have their chords hidden here, which is how long songs still fit on one page.
- **Single-column ("mobile") layout** - larger, more readable text; recommended for projection as well as phones. Everything is expanded: hidden chords, section references, and repetitions are all written out, so nobody has to scroll back to find how a section is played.

## LIVE mode (shared control)

LIVE mode lets one person drive what every connected device shows. Controlling a songbook requires editor or administrator permission on its project; anyone else can copy the songbook and control their own copy.

- **Basic mode (song selection).** Display a song and press "Set live" - it appears on all connected devices, transposition included. Viewers can press the red Live button to unpair and browse freely. Live mode is turned off from the song list, and switches off by itself after 8 hours of inactivity.
- **Advanced mode (scrolling).** With the songbook in single-column layout, a live song selected, and scroll mode enabled, the up/down arrows (on screen, on a keyboard, or from any device emulating those keys) highlight the song one section at a time on every device. If a playlist is selected, a "next song" button appears at the end of the song and can be stepped into with the same arrow key.
- **Pop-up message window.** A short broadcast message, optionally containing links, shown on every connected device and dismissed with the red X. This is the supported way to play a song that is not in the current songbook - paste its URL and everyone taps through together.
- **QR codes.** Every songbook has a QR page, which is the easiest way to get a crowd onto the right songbook at an event.

## Per-performance helpers

- **Chord transposition.** Any song can be shifted up or down in semitones on the fly without editing the source. Controls live in the song's bottom menu (and respond to keyboard shortcuts in LIVE mode); all chords in the rendered output are recomputed, but the stored markup is untouched, so every viewer can choose their own key. Songs may also declare a separate "capo" / transposition offset in their metadata as an informational hint about how the notation relates to the original recording.
- **Song notes.** Each song can carry a Markdown note that is scoped to the current project (band, choir, group). Notes are written in the song's edit screen, shown at the top of the song on mobile and inside the bottom menu on desktop, and are shared with everyone who has access to that project - useful for rehearsal reminders, who-sings-what, capo position, links to a reference recording, etc. They never modify the underlying song, so the same song can carry different notes in different projects.
- **Chord notation.** Chords use Latin (letter) names in one of two variants: German (`A - B - H - C`) or English (`A - A# - B - C`). Each song declares in its metadata which one it is written in, and each reader independently picks their own in the top menu - chords are converted at render time in both directions (German `H` shows as `B` and German `B` as `A#` for English readers, and vice versa). Chord validation follows the song's own notation, so `H` is only valid in German-notation songs. PDF export cannot adapt per reader, so the notation for a printed songbook is fixed by its "PDF song notation" setting.

## Hands-free LIVE control

LIVE mode is meant to be driven while you are playing, so the songbook can be controlled by a Bluetooth foot switch (or any keyboard / remote) that sends arrow-key events - the app only listens for `38 - ArrowUp` and `40 - ArrowDown`. The reference device is the M-VAVE Cube Turner: a small Bluetooth pedal (~20 €, USB-C, 10+ hours of battery) that pairs as a wireless keyboard with a phone, tablet, or laptop and steps through songs or scrolls the current song with the foot, so both hands stay on the instrument. It has to be switched to position `I` and set to "Portrait" mode for vertical scrolling. Any Bluetooth presenter remote that emits the same keys works the same way. See the LIVE-mode and Cube Turner sections in the [docs](https://kytario.com/docs) for pairing tips and troubleshooting.

## Song markup primer

Songs use a compact markup so an LLM reading a song page can recognize the structure:

- `{C}`, `{Am}`, `{F#m7}` etc. - chords, placed directly before the syllable they belong to; the root note is always capitalized, and `{F#m7/G#}` puts `G#` in the bass. Note names follow the song's own notation (German or English), so `{H}` appears only in German-notation songs
- `{X}` - marks a lyric line that is sung without any chord accompaniment (must be repeated on every such line)
- `{-}`, `{--}`, `{---}` - fixed non-breaking spaces of increasing width inside lyrics
- `- Section Name` - a section whose chords are always shown (verse, chorus)
- `+ Section Name` - a section whose chords are shown only in single-column layout (repeated verses/choruses)
- Section names are at most 4 characters; the conventions are `1.`, `2.` for verses, `Ref.` / `Ref1` / `Ref2` for choruses, `Pre.`, `Brid.`, `Int.`, `Out.`
- `[Ref.]`, `[1.]` - references back to a previously defined section; expanded in full in single-column layout, rendered as `Ref. - 1.` in two-column layout and print
- A section with no name renders chords and references only (no lyrics) - used for intros, solos, interludes
- `|: ... :|` - repetition; default is 2x, write `|: ... :| 3x` for more
- Chord spellings to avoid: `{Cmaj}`, `{Cmi}`, `{Csus}`, `{Cadd}` - always disambiguate (`{C}`, `{Cmaj7}`, `{Cm}`, `{Csus4}`, `{Cadd9}`)

Parentheses are not markup: `(I love cheap thrills)` in a lyric line is plain text, and authors use it by convention for backing vocals, echoes, and call-and-response. The parser only treats parentheses specially inside a chord tag, for extensions such as `{C7(b9)}`.

## Deliberate limits

These are intentional design decisions, documented in the FAQ - not missing features:

- Text color, font, and size cannot be changed; formatting is locked so songs stay portable and PDFs render identically everywhere.
- A song can have at most two columns; PDFs are A5 (they print fine on A4 scaled or two-up).
- There is no automatic timed scrolling - scrolling is stepped by section, driven by a person.
- Scrolling always moves by a whole section, so sections should stay under about 12 rendered lines.
- There is no bulk import of songs (no API, no import file); songs are entered and checked one at a time.
- It is not possible to list which songbooks contain a given song, because songbooks may be private.

## Primary pages

- [Homepage](https://kytario.com/): overview, featured songbooks, what Kytario is.
- [Songs](https://kytario.com/songs): public catalog of songs with search and filters.
- [Songbooks](https://kytario.com/songbooks): public catalog of shared songbooks.
- [Documentation / how-to](https://kytario.com/docs): full guide to song markup, layout modes, LIVE performance mode, PDF export, and FAQ. The most useful page for understanding how Kytario works in practice.
- [About Kytario](https://kytario.com/about-kytario): project background, the team, and the Brno music community it grew out of.
- [News](https://kytario.com/news): changelog and announcements about new features.

## Optional

- [Playlists](https://kytario.com/playlists): user-curated ordered lists of songs across songbooks.
- [Projects](https://kytario.com/projects): multi-tenant grouping for bands or organizations.
- [Support Kytario](https://kytario.com/how-to-contribute): how to help the project; the stack is Next.js, Tailwind CSS, Flowbite React, Prisma, PostgreSQL, and Playwright for PDF rendering.
- [Sign in](https://kytario.com/sign-in) and [Sign up](https://kytario.com/sign-up): Google OAuth entry points.
- [Privacy](https://kytario.com/privacy): privacy policy.
- [Terms](https://kytario.com/terms): terms of use.
- [Sitemap](https://kytario.com/sitemap.xml): full list of indexed pages.