6. Chords and lyrics

Chords

Chord symbols are the names written over the music: C, Am7, G/B. In Stab they belong to the song’s clips, so they move, repeat and copy with them, and the rest of Stab reads them: Smart Tracks play them, the Stage shows them to the band, and the Score writes them over the staff. To write a whole song’s changes quickly, use the Chart; this page is about chords on the tracks.

Chord symbols and the Chords row

Available on every platform.

Each track’s chord symbols sit in a band just above its lanes in an Editor pane. The Chords song row gathers the song’s chords in one line under the ruler (Song rows).

Adding a chord

• In the Chords row: double-click an empty place, or click it and press ReturnEnter. A faint “+” shows where the chord will go.
• At the caret, in an Editor pane: press ⇧QShift+QShift+Q (⇧Q on a Mac), or right-click the lanes and choose Add Chord Here…. The chord goes on the caret’s track, into its clip there; where there’s none, a clip is made for it. When the song has a Chords track, the chord goes there instead, so the Chords row, the Chart and the Stage show it.
• Over a note in the Score: select it and press ⇧QShift+QShift+Q (⇧Q on a Mac).

A field opens with a name already in it: the chord the notes sounding there make. Press ReturnEnter to keep it, or type your own (Am7, F#m7b5, G/B). Leave the field empty and no chord is added. Drum and audio tracks take no chord symbols.

Changing and moving chords

• Double-click a chord to rename it, or choose Rename Chord… from its menu (right-click it).
• Drag a chord along to move it, on the grid, within its clip.
• ⌫Backspace, DeleteBackspace, Delete (⌫, ⌦ on a Mac) deletes the selected chord, as does Delete Chord in its menu.

A chord is part of its clip: a clip that repeats, or a linked copy, plays it every time, and a change shows on every pass. Transpose takes chord symbols along with the notes.

The Chords track

Available on every platform.

The Chords track holds the song’s chords and nothing else: clips of chord symbols, with no sound of its own. Once it has chords, it is the song’s chords: the Chords row, the Chart, the Stage and every Smart Track read it alone, and chord symbols on other tracks stay where they are, in their own lanes and over their own staves.

Adding the Chords track

A song has one at most. Any of these makes it:

• Right-click a track’s header and choose Add Track › Chords.
• Add Chords Track in the Chart’s menu, or the first chord you write on the Chart.
• The Chord Chart template, and an iReal Pro chart, start a song with one.

A new Chords track starts from the chords the song already has: those of the track that holds the most chord symbols, in clips laid out as that track’s are, so a chorus played three times is still one clip.

Writing on it

The Chords track’s lane shows its chord names. Double-click an empty place in it to write a chord there; where it has no clip, one is made for the section the chord is in (marker to marker), else four bars. With a Chords track, the Chords row writes there too, and so do the Chart and Find the Chords. ⇧QShift+QShift+Q (⇧Q on a Mac) and Name Chord from Notes write there as well, wherever the caret or the notes are, still offering the name of the chord the notes make.

In the Score, the Chords track’s chords are written over the top staff, wherever that part has no chord of its own. Files that have no Chords track (Guitar Pro, MIDI, MusicXML) get its chords written onto the first fretted part, else the first keys part.

Naming chords from notes

Available on every platform.

Stab can name the chord some notes make, as a lead sheet writes it.

Name Chord from Notes

Select the notes of a chord, then right-click one of them and choose Name Chord from Notes, in an Editor pane or the Score. The name is written as a chord symbol at the first note, in its clip, or on the Chords track at that moment when the song has one; a chord symbol already there is renamed and keeps its diagram. The item is greyed out when the notes make no chord Stab knows. It’s one undo step.

The field that ⇧QShift+QShift+Q (⇧Q on a Mac) opens offers the same name: the notes sounding at the caret, or the notes selected in the Score.

How chords are named

• The lowest note is the bass. A chord over another bass note is a slash chord: C/E, Am7/G.
• Where two names fit, the one rooted on the bass wins. C, E, G and A over C is C6; the same notes over E is Am7/E. Then the plainer name.
• A root and its fifth alone is a power chord, A5. Any other two notes, a single note, or a cluster Stab doesn’t know get no name.
• Spelling follows the key signature: sharps in keys of three sharps or more, flats in keys of two flats or more, and between them C♯, E♭, F♯, A♭ and B♭. With no key set, the key the whole song’s notes suggest.

Where a song has no chord symbols at all, the Stage, the Chart and Smart Tracks name chords from the notes the same way, spelt in the same key, at each bar and half bar; the Chart and the Stage draw those names lighter.