# Songwriting Tools Chord tools, keys and scales with the theory reference, chord progressions, rhymes and a thesaurus, BPM & Metronome, and the Lead Sheet editor. Inside Artist Retreat are several tools built for the actual craft of songwriting: click "Songwriting Tools" at the top of the Artist Retreat page to open them. They're local, fast, and don't need an internet connection. The Spark Plug button is at the top of the Songwriting Tools window too, so you can record an idea without leaving it. ## Chord Chart The Chord Chart is a chord dictionary. Search for a chord, or browse by root note and chord type, then click one to see it as a guitar shape and on a piano keyboard. Play Chord lets you hear it: the guitar shape is strummed on a steel-string acoustic guitar, and the piano plays it on a grand piano. Clicking a chord name in other tools (such as Scales & Keys, Transpose, Circle of 5ths, Nashville Numbers or Chord Progressions) opens a small card with the same diagrams and a Play button. The guitar sound loads the first time you open a chord tool; a click before it is ready plays a simpler built-in guitar sound. ## Chord Finder Have notes but don't know what chord they form? Tap them on the on-screen piano or guitar fretboard (or play them on a MIDI keyboard) and the Chord Finder identifies matching chord names. Useful for learning songs by ear or transcribing. Play Chord plays what you entered: the fretboard shape strummed on a steel-string acoustic guitar, or the notes on a grand piano. "Also could be..." under the chord lists its other names: the same notes named from another root (C6 is also Am7, Csus2 is also Gsus4, a diminished 7th has four names), and chords that only leave out a note players often skip, marked "no 5th", "no 9th" and so on (C-E-Bb is C7 with no 5th). The piano can't tell which note is lowest, so it names chords in root position, the more common name first (C-E-G-A shows Am7, with C6 under "Also could be..."); with the guitar or a MIDI keyboard the lowest note is the bass, so the names are written over it: Am7/C for C-E-G-A with C lowest, and C/F# when the bass is not in the chord. Names mean the same notes as in the Chord Chart, where C11 has a 3rd. The Chord Chart's C13 also has an 11th (F), but players usually leave it out, so C-E-G-Bb-D-A shows as plain C13, with nothing marked as left out. > **Tip: MIDI input requires a connected device** > > On macOS, plug in any USB or Bluetooth MIDI keyboard before launching MusicLaunch. The Chord Finder will detect it automatically. No drivers needed for most class-compliant devices. ## Keys & Transposition Keys & Transposition opens on Theory Reference: Circle of 5ths, Intervals, Nashville Numbers, and Alt Tunings — the reference cards you'd otherwise keep pinned above your desk. Next to it, Scales & Keys is a quick reference for major, minor (natural/harmonic/melodic), the modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian), pentatonic, and blues scales — pick a key and see the notes on a piano keyboard and guitar neck, plus the diatonic chords. Transpose moves a chord sequence to a new key, Capo Chart shows where to capo for a shape you already know, and Modulation suggests routes between keys. ## Song Building: Chord Progressions & Song Structure Browse common chord progressions in any key, filtered by genre (pop, rock, blues, jazz, folk/country, R&B, hip-hop, EDM, and more), with the chord names and scale degrees for each. Song Structure lays out the sections (intro, verse, chorus, bridge…) of the song you're building. ## Lyricist's Toolkit → Rhymes Type any word and get back a list of rhymes, organized by quality: - Perfect rhymes — exact phonetic match (cat/hat, time/rhyme) - Near rhymes (slant) — strong but imperfect (love/glove vs. love/move) - Syllable filter — narrow the results to a syllable count to match your meter Powered by the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (about 126,000 English words). Click any result to look up its rhymes in turn. ## Thesaurus & Definitions, Mood Explorer, Writing Sparks Thesaurus & Definitions covers about 2,000 words commonly used in songwriting, with synonyms, antonyms, definitions, and emotional mood tags — click any synonym to look it up in turn. Mood Explorer browses words by feeling, and Writing Sparks offers prompts for when you're stuck. ## BPM & Metronome The BPM Calculator and the Metronome are on one page and share one tempo: type or tap it on the BPM Calculator and the Metronome follows; change it on the Metronome and the delay times follow. The Metronome plays 30 to 300 BPM; a tempo outside that (the BPM Calculator takes 1 to 999) plays at the nearest end, and the Metronome says so. While you type a new tempo on the BPM Calculator, the Metronome keeps its tempo until the number is 30 or more, or until you press Return or click away: an empty box doesn't change the click, and leaving it empty puts the tempo back. ### BPM Calculator The BPM Calculator looks like a delay pedal. Set your tempo (type it, or tap the TAP footswitch 3 or more times) and the time signature, then click a note value on the NOTE knob and pick Straight, Dotted or Triplet on the FEEL switch. The big number is the delay or reverb time in milliseconds; Copy ms puts it on the clipboard. The chart beside the pedal lists all 21 note values: click one to dial it in. The Hz figure is the LFO rate: pulses per second, the number to set on a tremolo, chorus or auto-pan Rate knob so it pulses once per note. In time signatures like 6/8, the BPM counts eighth notes (the screen says "Beat = eighth"). ### Metronome Set the tempo (30 to 300 BPM, or use Tap Tempo), the beats per measure and a subdivision: Quarter, Eighth, Triplet, Sixteenth, Swing 8ths or Swing 16ths. The first beat of the bar is accented, the other beats are softer, and the clicks in between are softer still. With Swing 8ths every "and" comes later; with Swing 16ths every "e" and "a" comes later, while the beat and the "and" stay put. A Swing amount slider then sets how much: 50% is straight, 66% is a triplet shuffle and 75% is the hardest swing (quick picks: Light 58%, Triplet 66%, Hard 75%). Each swing mode remembers its own amount while the Metronome is open; nothing is saved between visits. You can change the tempo, beats or subdivision while it plays, and the downbeat stays in place. ## Lead Sheet editor Write a chord-based lead sheet measure by measure, play it back with auto-accompaniment (the chords plus bass and drums in several styles), export it as a MIDI file for your DAW, import a MIDI file to auto-detect its chords, and print it. A new lead sheet starts blank: click "+ Add Section" and build the song from sections (Intro, Verse, Chorus and so on). To enter a chord, type it in "Type a chord", or click a root note and then a chord type: Minor picks the plain minor chord (A then Minor gives Am) and the list below it has Am7, Am6 and the rest; Suspended and Altered ask you to pick one from the list before Set Chord. Play starts at the bar you've selected and Play from Beginning starts at bar 1. The Click (metronome) plays over the drums too, and you can turn it on or off while the song plays. The Key menu only labels the song; the Transpose buttons (♭ Down and ♯ Up) move every chord and the Key a half-step. Once chords are in, if the Key is blank or doesn't fit them, a pop-up suggests a key: "Use" sets it, "Ignore" leaves the Key alone and doesn't ask again for the same chords. The Tuning menu shows each tuning's strings, for example Open G (D G D G B D). With the auto-bass or drums on, Export MIDI asks first: Export All, or tick just the tracks you want (Chords, Bass, Drums); each part opens as its own track in Logic Pro or your DAW. With the drums on, a sheet that has bars but no chords yet can export just the drums. "Import MIDI" opens your Mac's Open window, so the .mid file can be on any drive; it brings in the file's chords, tempo and time signature, and the sheet keeps its own name, Guitar/Piano setting, tuning and capo (MusicLaunch asks first if the sheet has chords, and ⌘Z undoes it). The chords play on the sound in the Sound menu: a Guitar sheet starts on Steel Guitar and a Piano sheet on Grand Piano. A Sound you pick stays picked when you switch between Guitar and Piano, but it isn't saved with the sheet. The lead sheet saves as you work. If it's still called "Untitled Lead Sheet" when you leave it (another tool, closing Songwriting Tools, New, or opening another sheet), MusicLaunch asks for a name first: Save Name, Keep as Untitled (not asked again for that sheet), or Cancel to stay. Cue sheets for sync placements live in Sync Licensing → Business → Cue Sheets. ## Related articles - [Artist Retreat](https://www.musiclaunchapp.com/help/artists-corner.md): Creative space for lyrics, setlists, bios, and press copy, plus the songwriting tools. - [Producer's Pad](https://www.musiclaunchapp.com/help/producers-pad.md): Track each song's production status, track by track, from writing to final master. - [Spark Plug (Record an Idea)](https://www.musiclaunchapp.com/help/spark-plug.md): Record a quick audio idea from any screen with one click, or send ideas from your phone. They are saved as WAV files in Media Hub → Ideas. --- - From the MusicLaunch Help Center (Production & Recording). The same guide is built into the app under Help. - Web page: https://www.musiclaunchapp.com/help/songwriting-tools/ - All guides: https://www.musiclaunchapp.com/llms.txt - Support: hello@musiclaunchapp.com