Song Writer

Library

Now open Sandbox C

Keep the section colours in saved pictures (off = plain white, ready to print)

Create a new song

Give it a name so you can find it later, or leave it blank for a fresh page in your sandbox.

Your words

Share & backup

Send this song by link

Anyone who opens the link gets a copy in their own library. A link made from the sandbox lands in their sandbox.

Lock my layout settings into the link (they get the same notes, chords and note values, and cannot widen them)

Download a backup

Choose what to include:

.json

Restore from a backup

Songs in the file are added to your library. A song you already have is not added twice, and a newer version replaces an older one. Song Writer 1.0 backups work too.

Start over

Deletes every song you have made, restores the examples, clears the sandbox, and puts layout settings back to everything-on. Song Writer 1.0’s own library is not touched. This cannot be undone.

Delete this section?

The line and everything on it goes.

Don’t show this message again

Layout settings

What is on the page, and what can be written on it. These are your working settings — anything you send to students carries a copy of them. A song that already uses something switched off here still opens exactly as written.

On the page

Notes that can be written

Tap the blocks to choose the range. The up and down arrows, the letter keys and harmony all stay inside it.

Chords on the panel

The chord panel, the lane and the keys only offer these places (each shows the scale’s chord on it right now).

Note values

Which values the value circles offer. A block counts as a quarter note until it is written, so the quarter always stays.

Keys

The keys the key letter offers, and what the scale menu beside it does to the melody.

Chord

Chord buttons

Set up for students

Build the room you want them to work in, then send the link. What you leave out simply isn’t there for them — no locks, no greyed-out buttons, just a smaller app.

The task

What the strip at the top says

This sentence sits above their work the whole time.

Notes, chords and values

Key & tempo

Tempo

From to BPM

The exercises

Tick what goes in this lesson. Students open them in this order.

What else comes with it

The link

The link is one-way: it opens the lesson and stays there. Keep working in your own copy here — nothing you send changes it.

Lessons you have made

How this works

Left hand · chords

With the chord panel out (the Chords tab at the top), F D S A G R E Q W and 1–5 play it the way Digital Accordion lays it out (the letters are pitches while you edit), and holding Z X C V B changes any chord — sus2, add9, sus4, ♭7, maj7 to start. The button by the title cycles Core · Full · Extended · Extreme: how many chords are out. The scale menu beside the key changes the whole panel.

Right hand · melody

← → (or the arrows at the right of the toolbar) step through the song, each note sounding. ⇧+↑↓ pick a note inside a harmony.

⛑
The hat beside Play puts you in Edit, and takes you out again. Every tool comes out in the Edit box — drag it by its title bar to any part of the screen, or fold it up with ⌃; it stays out until you take the hat off. Tap a word to type it — Space moves to the next word, ⌫ at the start goes back.
♩
Value circles write the selected block on the staff and step to the next one — so a phrase is one tap per note. Tap the lit circle again for a rest; the block circle turns a note back into a block. Dotted works before or after: on a block it lights and waits for the value you tap next. Tie holds the note over into a new eighth note on the same syllable (tap a circle to change its length) — over the bar line when the note ends a bar; Tie again unties it. [ ] step the value, and ⋯ writes (or unwrites) a whole line or song at once.
A
Letter keys in Edit type pitches: A S D F G H J K = do re mi fa so la ti do′, Q W E R T Y = do′ … la′, Z X C = so, la, ti below, V = do. ↑ ↓ move a step. Double-click a block’s top or bottom half to move it too.
♯
Note, in the Edit box: ♯ ♭ sharpen or flatten the selected note (tap again for natural); Harmony adds a note two steps above it, and − takes the selected one away. Syllable shows a dot for each note on this word — tap one to select it — and − takes the selected one away. Two buttons add a note: + Note/Syllable gives it a syllable of its own after this one; + Note Only puts it on this same syllable.
↵
Words & lines, in the Edit box: New line starts a line after this word, and Join up (on the first word of a line) joins the line to the one above. Delete removes the syllable — tap it twice, so one stray tap never loses work. Staff notation at the foot of the box is the same switch as in View: off, the rhythms show under the blocks.
♪
Pick-ups (Layout settings → 1-beat pick-up): every line starts with a one-beat pick-up. Select a line’s pick-up and Join up moves just that beat to the end of the line above — press it again to join the whole line. Delete on a pick-up takes it away and puts a rest in the bar above. A new line starts with its pick-up again.
A
Section names sit in the top corner of each line; type into them in Edit. ▲ ▼ move the line, ⧉ copies it below, × deletes it. Add a line, at the end of the song, starts a new one.
I
Chord lane (Chords tab): in Edit, tap the space above a word and choose a chord; while that space glows, the panel, its letter keys and 1–5 write into it — with any Z X C V B held, the changed chord (V⁷, I⁶₄). Otherwise they just sound. Stepping onto the word plays its chord.
✎
Change a chord: with the hat on, the pencil on any chord opens its editor — root, quality, a 7th or an inversion stuck to it, its name — and Back to the scale’s chord undoes it. The pencil at the end of the Z X C V B row chooses what each button does (sus2 … maj7, or the inversions 6, 6/4, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2). Re-chorded places are saved with the song. Under the panel, the corner shows the chord in hand and its notes; the keyboard’s Octaves and Focus sit below them.
⛶
Present hides every control and fills the screen. Play and the step arrows stay. Press Esc to come back.
␣
Spacebar plays from the selected note, and stops — and the next Play carries on from where it stopped. Sound sets a count-in, a steady beat, and what happens at the end.

About Song Writer

Created by Nathan Walby, Song Writer helps students compose and perform music using accessible graphic notation. Instead of getting bogged down by complex traditional scoring, students can focus purely on melody, rhythm, and musical exploration.

▶

Interactive playback. Step through in real time with the on-screen arrows or your keyboard’s left and right arrows — tap in rhythm to bring the melody to life — or press Play.

🎨

Full creative control. Compose original tunes, edit existing songs, and transpose to any key.

🔗

Easy sharing & printing. Share by link, send a lesson, or save a picture ready for printing.

📁

Offline song library. Organise and back up your songs right on your computer — no accounts, nothing leaves your browser.

New in this version

The same frame, toolbar and windows as Rhythm Poetry, Ostinato Builder and the Music Stand.
The construction hat sits beside Play again, as a switch. With it on, every tool — the value circles, ♯ ♭, harmony, and the word and line tools — is in one Edit box you can drag anywhere on the screen.
Song · Keyboard · Chords at the top: the song on its own, with a keyboard that follows the melody, or with the chord strip and lane.
Present mode, a count-in, a steady beat, and Go round or This line at the end — for practising a line over and over.
Staff notation one note at a time, bar numbers, a tempo from 30 to 300, Save picture, and lesson tempo rules.
Digital Accordion’s chord panel: the scale’s fourteen chords on the same keys in every scale (F D S A G R E Q W, 1–5), Z X C V B to change them, Core · Full · Extended · Extreme, a chord editor for 7ths and inversions, and a scale menu beside the key.