Structure

Every Keyflow file has the same two-part shape:

Vienna (Live) - Billy Joel    ← header: what the song is
4/4 140bpm #Gm

VS                            ← sections: the music
Gm Bb F Ab

Engraved, a small chart with a header and one section looks like this:

1. A header at the top describing the song — its title, who wrote it, and the musical defaults (time signature, tempo, key).
2. One or more sections of music below it.

This page covers the header. Sections and the music itself come in later pages.

The title line

The first line of text is the title. It may also carry an artist and a subtitle:

Vienna

Vienna - Billy Joel

Vienna (Live) - Billy Joel

• Text before - is the title; text after it is the artist.
• Text in (parentheses) becomes the subtitle.

So Vienna (Live) - Billy Joel reads as title Vienna, subtitle Live, artist Billy Joel.

The title line is optional — a chart can start straight at the metadata line or even at the first section. But naming your songs is a good habit, and the title is what shows up at the top of the rendered chart.

The metadata line

The next line sets the song's musical defaults. It holds up to three tokens, space-separated, in any order:

4/4 140bpm #Gm

68bpm 4/4 #G

Every token is optional. 4/4 #C (no tempo) and 120bpm (just a tempo) are both valid. Anything you omit falls back to a default — 4/4, no fixed tempo, and key of C.

Reading the key

The key token starts with a # (or b) marker — its only job is to tell the parser "this token is the key," so it isn't mistaken for a chord. The marker does not mean the key is sharp or flat. The key's own accidental and quality are written into the name itself:

A trailing m makes it minor; no m means major. (#Eb and bEb mean the same thing — pick whichever marker reads better to you.)

The key matters beyond display: it's what lets you write chords and melody as Nashville numbers (1 4 5) or Roman numerals (I IV V) instead of letter names, since those are relative to the key. More on that in the Chords pages.

Comments

A semicolon starts a comment. Everything after it on the line is ignored:

4/4 120bpm #C    ; mid-tempo, straight feel

Putting it together

A complete header, with the music that follows it:

Build My Life - Housefires
68bpm 4/4 #G

Intro
1 4 1/3 4

VS
1 4 1/3 4

Here the header names the song and sets G major at 68 BPM in 4/4. Because the key is set, the section can be written in Nashville numbers (1 4 1/3 4) — four bars, one chord per bar.

What's next

That's the whole header. From here the guide moves into the music:

• Sections — naming and ordering the parts of a song (VS, CH, BR…).
• Chords — letter names, Nashville numbers, and Roman numerals.
• Rhythm — how a bar holds more than one chord, and why you rarely need |.