Chord Beats

Chord Beats show the duration of each chord in your song. Each chord is annotated with its beat count, so musicians can see at a glance when to change chords.

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Enabling Chord Beats

Chord Beats are hidden by default. Enable them in the SongViewer settings before assigning beats to chords.

1. Open Settings → Song View.
2. Scroll to the Chord Beats section.
3. Turn on Show.
4. Choose a Style:
   • Dots — each chord is followed by small dots (•) for each beat; chords longer than 8 beats show a number (e.g. 12•).
   • Stacks — beats are stacked vertically below each chord.
   • Pills — beat count shown as a compact pill badge on each chord.
   • Timeline — chords are laid out on a horizontal timeline bar.
5. For Stacks, Pills, and Timeline styles you can also set Bars per line to control how many bars fit on one row.

You can also override this setting per song from the song's Song-Specific Preferences panel (the Chord Beats toggle under song overrides).

Editing Beat Counts

Assign beats to chords using the SongEditor's Chord Beats mode.

1. Open the song and tap Edit.
2. In the top toolbar, switch the syntax picker from ChordPro or Chords Over Lyrics to Chord Beats.
3. The editor renders every chord in the song with its current beat count. A style picker appears next to the syntax picker so you can preview a different display style while editing.
4. Tap a chord to select it.
5. Use the bottom toolbar to adjust the selected chord:
   • Previous — ⌘ ←
   • Minus — ⌘ ↓ (decrease beats, minimum 0)
   • Plus — ⌘ ↑ (increase beats)
   • Next — ⌘ →
6. Switch syntax or close the editor — beat values are written back into the song automatically.

Tips

• Beat counts are stored per chord, so they survive transposition and capo changes.
• Setting Beats = 0 hides the beat indicator for that chord while keeping the chord itself.
• Chord Beats data is also used by Chord Beats Sync (Settings → Chord Beats Sync) to drive MIDI clock / AUv3 transport, send chords as MIDI notes, and auto-scroll the song in real time.