Piano Chord Chart Maker & Leadsheet Editor

The Leadsheet Editor in The Ultimate Piano is for writing chord charts: chords over the bars, lyrics underneath, repeats and codas where they belong. You can play the chart back to hear whether it works, play along and get graded, move it into a key that suits the singer, and print it or export it for the band — a full chart, not a single chord diagram.

It builds professional chord charts and lead sheets, with lyrics, sections, the Nashville Number System, and ChordPro or PDF export.

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What the Leadsheet Editor Does

The Leadsheet Editor turns chords, lyrics, and song structure into a printable chart you can read at the piano or hand to a band. You build a chart by placing chords on a beat grid across the bars of a song, then add lyrics, sections, repeats, and navigation markers on top. When the chart is done, you can play it back, save it to your Cloud Library, or use ChordPro and PDF export to share it. The editor supports both piano and guitar, letter names and the Nashville Number System, and imports existing ChordPro files (.cho, .chopro, .crd, .pro) so you rarely start from a blank page.

Chord chart or chord diagram? The two get mixed up constantly. A chord chart is the whole song — bars, chords, and lyrics laid out so a player can read the tune from start to finish. A chord diagram is a picture of one single chord: which keys to press. The Leadsheet Editor makes chord charts; for single diagrams and fixed-key progression sheets, use the Diagram Generator.

How to Open the Leadsheet Editor

Open it from the Create menu in the header (look for Leadsheet Editor). Already worked out a progression in the Diagram Generator? Its Leadsheet button opens the progression as a new sheet — one chord per bar, with the same key, tempo and time signature.

Want to see a finished chart first? Click ♪ Amazing Grace in the top bar to load the demo song. New Song starts an empty sheet.

The sheet takes most of the window; the Song and Detail panel sits on the right and can be folded away. On narrow screens such as an iPad held upright, it folds into a slim strip at the edge and slides in when you tap a bar, a chord or the strip.

Adding Chords in the Chord Chart Maker

You add a chord to the chord chart in one of two ways, and each bar is divided into beat slots that hold up to 4 chords per beat:

• Drag and drop a chord from the Chords sidebar onto a beat slot — with the mouse, or with your finger on an iPad
• Click an empty slot to open the chord picker, then choose a Root and Quality

The root names in the sidebar are spelled for the song's key (B♭ in F major, F♯ in D major). Below them, Recent keeps the chords you used last, ready to drag again, and Custom holds chords you saved yourself with the save button in the header: click Choose to add one to the sidebar (piano charts only).

For each chord you can set the Quality, Inversion (root position through 3 inversions), and Bass Note (for slash chords like C/E). On the sheet, an inversion is written the way a lead sheet shows it — with its lowest note after the slash, so B♭ in second inversion reads Bb/F. The bass note appears below the chord in the chord images and sounds in playback — even when it is the root itself (C/C adds a C one octave lower). A No Chord (N.C.) marker silences the previous chord where you want a break.

Beat Grid

Choose how finely chords sit in a bar with the Grid setting under Layout in the Song panel (next to it, Bars per Row sets how many bars fit on a line):

In 6/8 the choices are 1 per beat (one per dotted quarter), Eighths and Sixteenths. Changing the grid redistributes existing chords proportionally — the editor asks first, and chords that would collide move to the nearest free slot, so you never lose your work.

Piano & Guitar Chords

Set the Instrument to Piano or Guitar in the song info. Below the sheet, the Chord Reference shows every chord of the song as a picture — a keyboard diagram for piano, a fretboard grip for guitar.

• Piano chords show note-by-note voicings with hand and octave options. The octave is the octave of the chord's lowest note — for an inversion, the note at the bottom — and a bass note you choose sits just below the chord.
• Guitar chords show fretboard diagrams. Pick the Voicing — Open, Barré, or a specific position — and the chart displays the matching guitar grip.

Sections, Repeats & Navigation

Structure a real song, not just a list of chords:

• Sections — Add named sections (Verse, Chorus, Bridge…), reorder them by dragging, and set how many times each repeats.
• Bars — Insert, duplicate, or delete bars, and move a bar by dragging its header, which also shows the bar number. Add pickup (anacrusis) beats before a bar. Click a bar to give it its own Time Signature — a single bar of 2/4 in a song in 4/4, for example. The bar gets exactly the beats of its meter, and playback follows it. If chords no longer fit after such a change, the editor asks before removing them.
• Repeats — Drop repeat start and repeat end markers onto bars, with a configurable repeat count.
• Endings (voltas) — Add 1st and 2nd endings (the 2nd open or closed). The editor warns you if a bracket or repeat sign is missing.
• Navigation markers — Place Segno, Coda, and Fine, plus D.C. al Coda and D.S. al Coda directives. Inconsistent jumps are flagged so the roadmap always plays back correctly. Repeat signs and navigation markers sit in a narrow margin beside their bar, so every bar keeps the same width.
• Simile — Drop % to repeat the previous bar or %% to repeat the previous two bars; playback plays them as written out.
• Fermata — Drop a fermata onto a chord to mark a free hold.

Everything in Song Structure and Song Elements is dragged from the sidebar onto the sheet — with the mouse, or with your finger on an iPad.

Lyrics — Chords Over Lyrics

Each bar has a Chords and a Lyrics tab. Open Lyrics to type the words for that line, then drag chord markers into the text so the chords sit exactly above the right syllables — the classic lead-sheet layout.

Song Info & Transposition

Fill in the song's metadata: Title and Subtitle, Composer, Lyricist, Arranger, Year, Genre / Style, Grade and Feel (e.g. Swing, Straight, Latin), plus BPM (20–300) and Time Signature. The top of the sheet shows composer, key, time signature, tempo and feel the way the printed chart does.

Set the Key on the circle of fifths, and transpose the whole chart to a new key in one move — the original and transposed keys are shown side by side, and a song in a minor key is offered the minor keys. Use the enharmonic toggle to switch spellings (e.g. C# ↔ Db). Printing and every export use the transposed key, so the band reads the chart in the key you will actually play.

Nashville Number System

The Nashville Number System writes each chord as its scale-degree number instead of a letter name, so one chart works in every key. Switch the Notation setting in the song info from Letters to Nashville, and every chord in the chart is shown as its scale-degree number instead of a letter name — 1, 4, 5, 6m — following the Nashville Number System used by session players and worship bands.

Because the numbers describe a chord's position in the key rather than a fixed letter, one number chart works in every key. When your singer needs the song a step higher, you don't rewrite anything — the numbers stay the same. Chords outside the key are written with an accidental degree (#1, b3), and the numbers appear both above the beat grid and inline with your lyrics.

The whole chart — number chords and lyrics together — exports to a clean, printable PDF for the band. The chord picker still uses familiar letter names while you build, so you enter chords the way you think and read them as numbers when you're done.

Playback

Press Play to hear the chart back, and Back to Start to return to the first bar. Switch on the Metronome and pick its sound; the count-in you set in the app Metronome plays before the first bar. Playback follows your repeats, endings, simile bars and D.C./D.S. navigation, so you hear the song exactly as it's written, and the chord that is sounding lights up on the sheet and on the keyboard.

Play Along with Scoring

Switch on Scoring under the playback buttons and play the chords yourself while the chart runs — on a MIDI keyboard or on the on-screen keys. Because a lead sheet shows chord symbols, not written notes, a chord counts as played when its notes are there in any octave, inversion or voicing.

While you play, each chord on the sheet is marked: correct (all chord tones on time), timing (right notes, off the beat), missing (chord tones missing) or wrong (wrong notes played). Your running score is shown as a percentage, with Accuracy, Timing and Clean listed below it.

ChordPro Export, PDF & Cloud Saving

The finished chart leaves the editor three ways: PDF export, ChordPro export, and a JSON project file. Export opens a window with all of them:

• PDF — three layouts: Chord Symbols & Beat (chord names at each beat position), Chord Images (a keyboard diagram for each chord) and Real Book PDF (large chord symbols in jazz style, ideal for rehearsals and gigs).
• ChordPro export — Export to the .cho ChordPro format used by many chord-chart and worship apps, so your chart opens in the tools your band already uses. ChordPro has no way to write repeats, endings, navigation markers, simile bars, fermatas, pickup bars or chord octaves, so the export tells you what it leaves out.
• Project File — A .json file with everything in the chart, to reload in the editor at any time.
• Import ChordPro — Load also opens ChordPro files (.cho, .chopro, .crd, .pro): the chords, lyrics, sections, and song info read into a working chart, so you start from an existing chart instead of a blank page. Chords the file defines with keyboard keys come in with exactly those notes, and remarks such as "play softly" are kept in the lyrics. (ChordPro records no rhythm, so one chord becomes one bar and you fine-tune the beat placement yourself. The importer is tested against the official ChordPro reference suite.)
• Save / Load — Save your charts to your Cloud Library as a JSON project and reopen them wherever you sign in, or keep them as a local file. They're organized in folders alongside your other files, so you'll find them again later. Under the title, the sheet shows for Local and Cloud whether the chart is Saved, To be updated or Not saved.

Use Cases

• Songwriters — Sketch a song's chords, lyrics, and structure in one place
• Worship & band leaders — Make Nashville number charts the whole band can read in any key, export to PDF or ChordPro
• Guitarists — Get fretboard voicings for every chord in the chart
• Teachers — Hand students a clean lead sheet, transposed to a comfortable key
• Arrangers — Map out sections, repeats, and endings, then check the playback
• Anyone with a ChordPro collection — Import an existing .cho/.chopro chart and build on it instead of starting from scratch

Related: Generate fixed-key chord diagrams with the Diagram Generator. Explore voicings and inversions in the Chord Explorer. Pick keys on the Circle of Fifths.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I make a chord chart online?

Open the Leadsheet Editor, set the key and time signature in the song info, then place chords on the beat grid — drag a chord from the Chords sidebar onto a beat slot, or click an empty slot to open the chord picker and choose a root and quality. Each chord can have its own quality, inversion, and bass note, and the beat grid controls how many chords fit in each bar. Add lyrics under the bars, mark sections and repeats, then export the finished chart to PDF or ChordPro.

Can I make a guitar chord chart?

Yes. Set the instrument to Guitar in the song info and each chord shows a fretboard diagram. You can choose an open, barré, or specific-position voicing for every chord.

Can I import a ChordPro file?

Yes. Use Load and pick a ChordPro file (.cho, .chopro, .crd, or .pro) — the editor detects the format automatically and reads the chords, lyrics, sections, and song info into a working chart. Because ChordPro doesn't store rhythm, the chords start out spread across the bars; from there you place them on the beat grid, add voicings, transpose, or switch to Nashville numbers like any other chart.

Does the Leadsheet Editor have ChordPro export?

Yes. The Leadsheet Editor has ChordPro export to the .cho format used by other chord-chart and worship apps, plus PDF export (including a Real Book-style variant). Charts can also be saved to your Cloud Library as a JSON project and reopened later.

Does it support the Nashville Number System?

Yes. Switch the Notation setting from Letters to Nashville and every chord is shown as its scale-degree number (1, 4, 5, 6m) instead of a letter name. Because the numbers describe each chord's position in the key, one number chart works in every one of the 12 keys — transpose without rewriting. Chords outside the key use accidental degrees like #1 or b3, the numbers appear above the beat grid and inline with the lyrics, and the whole chart exports to a printable PDF.

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