Chord Beats

Chord Beats show the duration of each chord in your song. Each chord is followed by small dots (•) indicating how many beats it lasts, so musicians can see at a glance when to change chords. Chords longer than 8 beats are shown as a number followed by a single dot (e.g. 12•).

Enabling Chord Beats

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

Open Settings → Song View. Scroll to the chord display section. Turn on Show Chord Beats. (Optional) Turn on Hide full measures (dots) to suppress dots for chords that already last a full measure (i.e. their beat count matches the song's time signature). Only non-default durations will be drawn.

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

Assigning Beats to Chords

Once Chord Beats are visible, use the SongEditor to set the duration of each chord.

Open the song and tap Edit. In the editor, switch the syntax picker from ChordPro / Chords Over Lyrics to Chord Beats. The editor renders every chord in the song with its current beat count drawn as dots underneath. Tap a chord to select it — an orange underline marks the active chord. Use the bottom toolbar to adjust:

- ◁ Previous chord — ⌘ ←
- − Decrease beats — ⌘ ↓
- + Increase beats — ⌘ ↑
- ▷ Next chord — ⌘ →

Leave the Chord Beats editor (or switch syntax) and the new beat values are written back into the song.

Tips

Beat counts are stored per chord, so they survive transposition and capo changes.
Setting Beats = 0 hides the dot 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.