Chord lead sheet

Use the chord leadsheet editor to:

Add chord symbols, eg Cm6, Ab7, F#9M#11, NC (no chord), ...
Add sections, eg A, B, verse, chorus, ...
Move and edit chords to adjust rhythm accents, interpretation or harmony
Add bar annotations (for lyrics etc.)

Chord symbols

Input

Select a bar or a chord symbol then:

type the first letter of the chord symbol ('A' to 'G'), or
press ENTER, or
double-click, or
right-click menu, Edit

You can also select an existing chord symbol and move it while pressing the control button, it will create a new copy that can be edited.

To move a chord symbol just select it and move it with the mouse.

To change the size of the lead sheet, select a bar then right-click menu and select Set end bar.

Use ctrl-click or shift-click for multiple selection.

In order to input a lead sheet from scratch, the easier way is to select the first bar, directly type in the chord symbols, press ENTER (it will automatically select the next bar), type in the chord symbols for the second bar, etc.

Aliases

JJazzLab can recognize different forms of a given chord symbol. For example C-7, Cm7, Cmi7, Cmin7 are all equivalent.

You can add your own chord aliases in the Chord Symbols tab of the Options window, as shown below:

Use the popup menu (right-click on windows/Linux, ctrl-click on Mac) to see commands available for the current selection: bars, chord symbols or sections.

You can add more aliases in menu Options/Chord Symbols.

Interpretation

Select a chord symbol, edit it (double-click, press enter, or right-click menu), and select the Interpretation tab.

The Interpretation tab lets you decide how this chord symbol should be played:

Normal
Accent: add a rhythmic accent and randomly a crash cymbal. You can make the accent stronger, or make sure a crash cymbal is played or not played.
Hold: add a rhythmic accent and hold notes until next chord symbol. If extended more instruments are hold.
Shot: add a rhythmic accent with chord notes played briefly. If extended more instruments are shot.
Pedal bass: bass line will only play the bass note (for ex. F for Fm7 or C for Fm7/C). This setting is on by default when you enter a slash chord.

Each rhythm generation engine may render these Interpretation parameters differently.

The shape of the marker below the chord symbol depends on the interpretation mode:

For example, in order to render:

you could use the following interpretation parameters:

See below the keyboard shortcuts to change the interpretation of selected chords.

Harmony

Select a chord symbol, edit it and select the Harmony tab.

The Harmony tab lets you select the scale to be used when rendering the music for this chord symbol.

Example Suppose that the reference bass line for Eb7M contains a Ab (4th degree of the Eb major scale). If you select the Lydian mode (which has a sharp 11th degree) then the reference bass note Ab will be rendered as A for this chord symbol.

By default no scale is selected: each rhythm generation engine will decide the "best" scale to use.

Substitute chord symbol

Select a chord symbol, edit it and select the substitute chord symbol tab.

This tab lets you define a substitute chord symbol which will be used when some conditions are met.

Substitute chord symbols are useful when you need to introduce a slight variation in a part of a song.

The substitute chord symbol can be any chord symbol, with any interpretation or harmony, or no chord symbol at all (void chord). Chord symbols which have an substitute chord symbol defined are displayed with a different color (see image below).

Example:

In the Carlos Santana's "Europa" song, the 1st ending of the theme is a Cm7, but the 2nd one is a C major. To implement this in JJazzLab, one solution could be to duplicate section A1 to create section A2 with the different ending, then update the song structure accordingly. This is perfectly fine, but when changes are minor the substitute chord symbol can provide a simpler solution.

You can see below (and in the dialog snapshot above) that a C7M substitute chord has been created for Cm7. C7M will be used for all song parts (see the song structure editor) where the marker is set to Theme2. On the image below it means the C7M will be used only for the 2nd song part.

There is another substitute chord symbol example in the 3rd bar: A7. If you listen to the original song you'll notice that they play a A7 on the last beat of the 3rd bar only during solos. So the A7 chord symbol defines its substitute chord symbol as the "void chord symbol" (same as no chord symbol) when marker is not "Solo".

Sections input

Typical sections are 'intro', 'verse', 'chorus', etc.

A Song section is the basic unit used by JJazzLab to define the song structure. There is always a section defined on the first bar.

To add a section select a bar which is not after the end then:

press ENTER, or
double-click, or
right-click menu, Insert Section... or Edit...

The new section name must be different than the existing one.

Force a section at new line

You can force a section which is not on the first bar of a row to start on the next line. This can be useful when some sections have an odd number of bars.

Select a bar with a section defined or select the section itself, right-click menu "Force Section at New Line".

This will result in the display below.

Bar annotations / lyrics

You can add annotations to any bar.

When annotations are hidden, bar with annotations are marked with a post-it (tooltip shows the annotation text).

Special # syntax for Easy Reader

Suppose the same bar is used in different song parts. The lyrics for this bar might change depending on the song part. You can prepend # to annotation lines so that the Easy Reader displays only the relevant line.

Example: for the annotation above, Easy Reader will show "with... you" the first time, "and...you" the second time, and "take...you" whenever the current song part name is "chorus".

Mouse shortcuts

Selection

Mouse

Action

bar, chord symbol, section

click

select

chord symbol

double click

edit using chord symbol editor

bar, section

double click

edit using bar editor

bar, chord symbol, section

right-click

popup menu

chord symbol

mouse-wheel

transpose

editor

ctrl mouse-wheel

change X zoom factor

Keyboard shortcuts

Many actions are also available via the context menu (right-click on Windows/Linux, ctrl-click on Mac), and when available the associated keyboard is displayed.

Selection

Key

Action

chord Symbol

enter

edit with chord symbol editor

bar, section

enter

edit with bar editor dialog

bar

ctrl-E

set end bar