The Magic Squiggles

The chord thingamajig lets you transpose & capo those chord doohickeys, plus decide how they're gonna look on your screen. It also lets you pick an instrument so you can see what those fancy chord diagrams look like.

The full style preferences menu is totes only available for text-based chord charts. BUT if you downloaded charts from some fancy content provider like PraiseCharts or SongSelect, you'll get access to transpose charts when you're signed in (because OnSong will bug the content provider to download extra stuff as needed). If you already grabbed attachments with matching keys, you can even transpose between 'em without the internet. Otherwise, if you're eyeballin' an imported file, you got options like Extract and Edit or Use Text Version.

How Your Chords Wanna Look

The style picker lets you choose how chords show up on your screen. Pick one of these totally radical options:

• Alpha shows chords as letters (A-G) with your fancy sharp or flat preference. This is the default because we said so.
• Nashville shows chords as numbers (1-7) based on where they sit in the key. Very Nashville of you.
• Roman shows chords as Roman numerals (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii) based on their spot in the key. Totes scholarly.
• Solfege shows chords as numbers using that Latin mumbo-jumbo (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti) based on where they live in the key. The "do" can be fixed or movable by tapping the wrench thingy.

Key

The key picker lets you set what key this chord chart is gonna be in. Spoiler: it might be different from how you originally wrote it because transposition is doing its magic from the original key to whatever you picked here. The original key gets highlighted so you don't forget where you started.

The super common keys show up in "circle of fifths" order (less sharps & flats hang out on the left). Keys flip between major & minor depending on how the song's written. Wanna switch it up? Change this to alphabetic order or go old-school with the slider thingy using the Transpose Control option.

If you're feeling theoretical or just wanna see ALLLL the keys, flip on Theoretical Keys.

Capo

The capo slider lets OnSong be smart about your capo position. This keeps your song's key locked in but changes the actual chords so they work with your capo. You can capo from 0 to 11 & turn it on/off with the power button on the right.

By default, cranking up the capo slider will shift the chords down. Why? Because we wanna keep the song's declared key the same, duh. So if your song's in C# & you slap a capo on fret 1, set the slider to 1. Boom—you'll see the chords down one half step in C.

Wanna change how capo messes with your chart? Go to Settings » Display Settings » Song Formatting » Capo.

Tap the left & right sides of the slider to nudge the capo up & down one fret at a time.

Chord Diagrams

Diagrams can be doodled on your chord chart to help you play, or print 'em out for teachin' purposes. Toggle diagrams on & off with the power button. Slide the thingy to fit between 4 & 10 diagrams across one page.

Tap left & right on the slider to adjust the diagram count by one.

Where the Diagrams Hang Out

The diagram position picker lets you decide where those diagrams get drawn. Pick one:

• None kills the diagrams. Default.
• Below puts diagrams under the song stuff.
• Above puts diagrams above the song content, right under the title & metadata.
• Within plops diagrams right where the chords are in the lyrics.

Instrument

Change which instrument's diagrams you're seein' by pickin' from the instrument chooser. You can also switch instruments by tappin' on chords or diagrams in the song viewer to open the Chord Inspector. Browse chord formations on whatever instrument you're playin'. When you close the inspector, the chart redraws with your last picked instrument's diagrams.

Transposing Instrument

If your instrument doesn't play at concert pitch (we know, fancy), you can adjust the chords throughout the song. Options:

• Off is for concert pitch & most stringed or percussion instruments like piano.
• B-flat is for B-flat instruments like trumpet, clarinet, bass clarinet, & soprano & tenor saxophones.
• E-flat is for E-flat instruments like soprano clarinet, or alto & baritone saxophones.
• F is for F instruments like French & English horns.
• G is for alto flute.

How This Actually Works

Changes you make here? They don't touch the original song content in the song editor. Phew.

When you pick a song from All Songs, changes go to the master library. If you pick a song in a book or set with Separate Set/Song Styles turned on, changes only hit that song in that set. So you can transpose for one book without wreckin' the master version. Clever, right?

Wanna change the default behavior & interface options? Tap the wrench icon in the top left to fiddle with Style Preference Chords options.