Key, capo, and transposing

By default, when you first create a song it is assigned the key of C.

You can change the song’s key by tapping on the song’s current key, or “Set key” if no key is currently set. The key editor popover will be shown:

If no key was previously set, SongSheet Pro will attempt to guess the song’s key based on the chords in the song, and suggest it in the key selector.

You can clear the currently set key by tapping the trash/bin icon in the top-left corner of the popover.

Tap the various buttons to set the required key. When done, you have two options:

1. Set key only – you might use this when you have pasted in a song that is set in a key other than C and you wish to update the key to reflect the current version of the song.

2. Transpose to key – all chords within the song (as well as the chord palette) will be transposed to the new key.

Note that the ability to set or transpose the key is also available during perform mode, i.e. when not editing the song.

For guitarists, you can also set a capo for a song. Just tap on the capo field and select a new value from the menu:

When you set a new capo, SongSheet Pro will transpose all of the chords within the song, so that they reflect the chord shapes to play in order to play within the key that is currently set. For example, if a song is set in the key of D major, and you play with capo on the 2nd fret, you would need to play the corresponding chords in the key of C major so that they sound like the chords in the key of D major. Thus, SongSheet will tranpose a D chord to C, and so on. If instead you wish the capo to transpose the song to a new key, you will also need to use the key editor to transpose by the same number of steps. So in this case, a song set in D major, with capo set to 2, should be transposed to E major (up 2 steps).

To remove the capo, select “No capo” from the menu.

The capo field will be hidden from view when viewing a song (i.e. not in edit mode) and no capo is set, although this can be overridden in the settings.

Note: If the song does not have a key set, the capo field will not be displayed.