The Lines & Spaces Staff

The melody staff we have been using in these Help topics so far is ChordSong's default, recommended Chromatic Staff. For compatibility with older editions of ChordSong, we also provide ChordSong's old Lines & Spaces Staff, but we recommend that you use the Chromatic Staff for new work.

You choose between the Chromatic Staff and the Lines & Spaces Staff using ChordSong's Note > Staff Type menu command. However, this is a one-way conversion. You can convert an existing song from the old Lines & Spaces to the new Chromatic, but once a song contains notes, you cannot convert back to the old Lines & Spaces. This is because the new Chromatic Staff lets you use note combinations which cannot be displayed on the old Lines & Spaces Staff.

On the Lines & Spaces Staff:

Each pitch letter goes an an alternate line or space. Because of this, several chromatic pitches (for example C, C#/Db, and D) share the same part of the staff. Because of this, ChordSong cannot "color code" the chord tones to help you find them.

ChordSong does not display the name of the pitch under the mouse in the Tools window; this is a new feature of the Chromatic Staff.

After you click in the staff to create a new note, you need to move the mouse pointer away to see your new note. This is because, when your mouse pointer is in the staff, ChordSong always shows you a "preview" of what will happen next if you click, and this "preview" can hide what you just did.

Sharps and flats. To create a sharped note, hold down the Shift key while you click the staff; for a flat, hold down the Ctrl key. To force a note to be natural (neither sharp nor flat) when Auto Sharps/Flats (see below) is turned on, hold down Shift+Ctrl together.

ChordSong displays your sharped or flatted note with an "up" or "down" symbol.

When your mouse pointer is in the melody staff, and ChordSong is showing your "next note", it colors the note. If it's a chord tone, ChordSong colors it green; if it's not, ChordSong colors it red. If ChordSong can't tell whether it's a chord tone, it's colored black. This happens if the current chord is a "custom chord".

Auto Sharps/Flats. This feature makes it even easier to find chord tones. Here's an example: Say you're creating a melody over a C#m chord. The notes in a C#m chord are C#, E, and G#. Now say you click on the G-line in the melody staff. ChordSong knows that the chord contains a G#, not a G-natural, so it automatically makes the new note a G#.

You can turn Auto Sharps/Flats on and off via the Note > Staff Type > Auto Sharps/Flats menu command.

Polynotes.The notes in a polynote are not allowed to be too close above or below each other, because then you couldn't see them clearly. So if you add a new note too close above or below an existing note, ChordSong will create the new note but at the same time it will delete the old note.