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Chord-tastic Squiggles
The chords tab lets you transpose & capo chords as well as determine how those chords appear. It also lets you select an instrument for chord diagrams. Basically, it's where all the musical nerd stuff happens.
File Format Shenanigans
OnSong can transpose & format songs in text files as well as PDF files. Learn more about these supported file formats & how to squeeze every last drop out of the chord transposition engine. (Seriously, we coded this thing to death.)
Key
The key chooser lets you set the key of the chord chart. This can be totally different from how the song was written in the song editor because transposition is performed from the original key to the one you picked here. The original key? Visually highlighted so you don't forget where you started. The key the chart is written in is always offered, so you can undo a transposition & pretend none of this ever happened.
Below the transpose toggle is the listen button. Tap it to use Key Finder, which listens to you sing or play through your audio input or a connected MIDI instrument & detects the key to perform the song. A Listen For Key prompt first explains the feature (we know, thrilling); tap Listen to start. While OnSong works out the key, Calculating Key… appears (go grab a snack). If your plan doesn't include this fancy feature, tap Upgrade in the prompt. The listen button doesn't appear when the Transpose Control option is set to the slider.
If the song has no key, only the transpose toggle is available. Tap it & choose Detect Key in the No Key Set prompt to find the key from the chords. If the song doesn't contain enough chords, No Key Detected appears instead. (Awkward.) The key chooser & capo stay disabled until a key is detected.
The most common keys are presented in a "circle of fifths" order, placing keys with less sharps & flats toward the left. Keys switch between major & minor based on how the song is written. You can change this interface to be in alphabetic order, or use the original slider interface instead using the Transpose Control option. Dealer's choice.
Users who prefer more options in keys or who want to access theoretical keys can turn on Theoretical Keys option. Flex on us why don't ya.
Capo
The capo slider allows OnSong to adapt the chords based on capo position. This maintains the key of the song found in the transpose slider but alters the chords to work with the capo. You can capo from 0 to 11 & determine if the capo is applied by toggling the power button on the right.
By default, increasing the capo slider will modulate the chords of a song down. The reason? To allow the declared key of the song to be maintained. For instance, if the key of the song is C#, & a capo is applied on the first fret, then you should set the capo slider to 1. This will display the chords of the song down one half step in the key of C. Science!
You can change how capo effects your chord chart in Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo. (More menu diving awaits.)
You can tap on the left & right sides of the slider to adjust the capo up & down one fret. Riveting stuff.
Transposing Instrument
If you're playing an instrument that doesn't play at concert pitch, you can adjust the chords that appear throughout the song to adjust for those instruments. Because apparently your horn is special. Options include:
- Off used for concert pitch & most stringed or percussion instruments like piano.
- B-flat used for B-flat instruments such as trumpet, clarinet, bass clarinet, & soprano & tenor saxophones.
- E-flat used for E-flat tuned instruments such as soprano clarinet, or alto & baritone saxophones.
- F used for F tuned instruments such as French & English horns.
- G used for alto flute.
Position
The position chooser lets you determine if chords should be displayed above the lyrics, or inline with the lyrics. Choose your own adventure:
- Above displays the chord above the lyrics on an extra line.
- Inline displays the chord within the lyrics on the same line.
Style
The style chooser lets you pick how the chords should appear on the screen. We got variety, baby:
- Alpha displays chords as an alphabetic character (A-G) including enharmonic preference (sharp or flat). Default. You know, boring.
- Numeric displays chords as Nashville numbers (1-7) based on their position in the key.
- Roman displays chords as Roman numerals (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii) based on their position in the key.
- Solfege displays chords as numbers using Latin (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti) based on their position in the key. Tap & hold the Solfege button to choose Default, Fixed or Movable for the "do" of this song. (Yes, we went there.)
Split Chord
This determines what portion of the chord is displayed when it includes a split bass component. No judgment:
- Both displays both the chord, & the bass note separated by a slash.
- Bass Only displays only the bass note. If no split bass note is specified, the note of the corresponding chord is displayed.
- Chord Only displays only the chord portion of the chord & omits the bass note including the slash.
Typography
This section lets you customize how the chord is rendered using different typographic conventions. Because apparently Arial wasn't cutting it. Each of the following items can be toggled on & off independently:
- Superscript turns superscripting of the chord variation on & off. This includes everything after the note definition but does not superscript the slash bass note. Default is off.
- Enharmonic Symbols replaces text-based representations for sharp & flat with actual musical symbols. Default is off.
- Replacement Symbols replaces certain chord variations with symbolic notation. For instance, minor is replaced with a minus, augmented is replaced with a plus, & major seventh chords are replaced with a triangle.
- Lowercase Minor Chords will omit the "m" syntax for minor chords & represent them instead with lowercase note values.
- Lowercase Split Bass will lower case the note found in the split bass portion of the chord after the slash.
Decoration
While OnSong uses square brackets to designate chords in a chord chart, they typically do not get outputted in the result chord sheet. The following options are mutually exclusive & allow none to be selected to remove all decorations:
- None is the default & uses no decoration. This is achieved when none of the options are selected.
- Square Brackets will wrap all chords with square brackets.
- Parentheses will wrap the chords in parentheses.
- Angle Brackets will wrap the chords in angle brackets or less than & greater than symbols.
- Curly Braces will wrap the chords in curly braces.
Methodology
Changes made in this menu do not modify the original content of the song as found in the song editor. (We're nice like that.) Every setting except for key & capo are applied to formatting chords for the song when you choose the system scope.
When you select a song in the All Songs list, the changes are applied to the master library. If you select a song in a book or set that has Separate Set/Song Styles enabled, the changes are only applied to the song within that set. This allows you to transpose a song in a different key for that book or set without changing the master version. Neat trick, right?
You can change the default behavior & interface options for this screen by tapping the wrench icon in the upper left corner to change Style Preference Chords options. (Yeah, it's deep in the menu. We know.)
