Sections

Below the header, a chart is a stack of sections — the named parts of the song. A section is a header line naming the part, then the music underneath it, running until the next header:

VS 4
C  F  G  Am

CH 4
F  C  G  Am

Two named sections with their bar lengths, engraved:

That's a four-bar verse followed by a four-bar chorus. Everything between two headers belongs to the section above it.

Naming a section

Use the common short name or spell it out — case doesn't matter:

So VS, Verse, and verse are the same section. (Names are two or more letters — a lone C is the chord C, not a chorus.) PRE- and POST- go in front of any name — Pre-Chorus, Post-Verse.

To tell apart two of the same part — a first and second chorus that differ — drop a short label between the name and its length:

CH 3A 4       chorus variant 3A, four bars

Length in bars

The number after the name is the section's length in bars:

VS 8          an eight-bar verse
CH 4          a four-bar chorus

Leave it off and Keyflow just counts the bars you wrote — VS with four bars of music below it is a four-bar verse. If you write more bars than the number says, Keyflow flags it, so the count doubles as a quick check that the part came out the length you meant.

Repeating a section

Write a section's music once, then replay it by name — a header with nothing under it recalls what that section played before:

VS 4
1  4  5  1

CH 4
4  1  5  1

VS            replays the verse
CH            replays the chorus

So a full song is mostly its section list: lay out VS, CH, BR once, then order the repeats however the song goes.

Labels

Add a note to a section in quotes — a dynamic, an instruction, a cue:

CH 4 "Big finish"
IN 2 "drums only"

The label rides along with the section and shows on the rendered chart.

Custom sections

For a part that isn't one of the standard names, put your own name in brackets:

[Tag] 2
[Sax Solo] 8

A custom section behaves like any other — it takes a length and can be replayed by name ([Tag] again).

A key change at a section

A section can start in a new key: add a key token (see Structure) to its header, and it takes effect from the top of that section.

BR 8 #Ab      the bridge moves to A♭

Number and Roman-numeral chords in that section resolve against the new key, and the key signature updates there.

What's next

• Lyrics — writing words under the chords, lined up with the music.