Annotations & Expression

Beyond the notes themselves, a chart carries markings — a word of direction, a dynamic, a swell. In Keyflow these go on their own lines inside a section, mixed in with the chord and melody lines.

Staff text

A quoted string is free text placed on the staff. By default it sits below; ^ puts it above, _ keeps it below:

"straight feel"        below the staff (the default)
^"BIG"                 above the staff
_"rit. ...."           below the staff

Staff text and a dynamic alongside the chords, engraved:

Put the line wherever the text belongs in the music — before the bar it describes, between two chord lines, and so on. (To pin text to a single chord instead of a whole spot, attach it to the chord: Cmaj7"as written" — see Chords.)

Instrument cues

A cue aimed at one player starts with @ and the instrument name, then the text:

@Drums "full groove now"
@Bass "walk it down"
@Keys "pad only"

It reads like staff text but is tagged for that instrument, so a part can show just its own cues.

Dynamics

Classical dynamics use the dyn keyword, so a lone f or p is never mistaken for a chord:

dyn mp
dyn ff
dyn fp

The levels run ppp pp p mp mf f ff fff, plus the accents sf, sfz, and fp.

A dynamic sits below the staff by default; add above to lift it:

dyn mf above

To place it on a particular beat of the bar rather than the downbeat, add @ and the beat number:

dyn fff@4        forte-fortissimo on beat 4

Hairpins

A hairpin is a crescendo or decrescendo wedge, written with hairpin and a direction — < to swell, > to fade — over a beat range start..end:

hairpin < 1..4        crescendo across the bar
hairpin > 2..4        decrescendo from beat 2 to 4

Like dynamics, hairpins default below the staff; add above to move them up.

What's next

• Repeats & Endings — the last piece: saying a part once and looping it, with first and second endings.