Chord sheets can be easily created, edited, printed for other musicians, displayed full screen, changed in size, and Transposed.
A Chord sheet is made up of 2 elements
When displayed on screen or printed, the Chord lines are in black text and the Lyric lines are in grey text.
Every chord sheet is assigned a font size which can easily be changed
The font used for all chord sheets is a monospaced font which means that the chords will always appear above the same word in the lyrics even when the font size is changed. This font is not installed on your computer with the Power Music installation but is included for use within the program as a local font.
Chord sheets are “Parsed”. Parsing is the process of analysing each line of text to determine whether it is a Chord line or a Lyric line.
Parsing allows chord sheets previously created in a word processor, eg MS Word to be cut and pasted directly into Power Music.
Chords must conform to the notation given in the drop-down lists. See Chord Notation for an explanation of the notation used.
A Chord can be entered into a Chord line by the following methods:
When a chord is inserted using method 2 then the chord will be added to a list of recently used chords. This window will appear the first time you press 'Insert Chord' and the visiblity can be toggled by pressing the 'Recent Chords' button. Simply clicking on a recently used chord will add it to the chord line at the cursor position.
Chords can be inserted above a Lyric line by positioning the cursor at the required point in the Lyric line and then using method 2 or 3 above.
If no Chord line was present a new Chord line will be created above the Lyric line.
Chords can be inserted into existing Chord lines or blank lines by positioning the cursor at the required point in the chord or blank line (padding with spaces if required) and then using any of the above methods.
Use the handy Insert buttons to insert allowable characters into a chord line:
(Bar lines and colons can be used to create repeat signs)
When brackets are inserted the cursor is automatically placed between the brackets. Any characters can be typed between the brackets. These characters will be ignored when Parsing or Transposing.
Here is an example of a chord symbol, diagrammed to show its elements:
The root indicates just that: which note of the chromatic scale is the root of the chord. It is not, however, always the bass note of the chord.
The next part of the symbol indicates the variation of the chord. The acceptable variations in Power Music are:
The next number shows the extensions used on a chord. Classical harmony often uses only the basic triad, while jazz harmony makes greater use of the upper extensions (7th, 9th, 11th, 13th). If no extension is shown, it is assumed that the chord is a major triad. If the extension is not available on the drop-down list just type it in the chord line. Power Music will accept any numeric between 1 and 99.
Finally, any alterations to the chord are indicated within parentheses. These alterations include raising or lowering a chord tone by half step (indicated by a sharp or a flat, respectively), and can also indicate that a given non-chord tone should be added ("add D"), or that a chord tone should be omitted ("no 3rd"). Multiple alterations may be indicated within one chord symbol ("b9/#11).
The bass note is positioned after a diagonal slash, and is a letter indicating the pitch to be played as the bass note. The bass note is only required if it is not the same as the root.
Use the drop-down list to select the new key. This will transpose all chords in valid chord lines and will also change the key of the song.
Sometimes you may want to transpose part of a song only, for example the last verse of a song is often raised by a tone.
Select the portion of text to transpose and select the new key. A prompt will appear. If you agree to transpose the selection only, then that part will be transposed.
In the following example, the last verse will be transposed to the key of G, but the song remains in the key of F:
