A chord grid charts a song as a row of bars, with a chord in each, and no lyrics underneath. It is how you write an intro, a turnaround, a jazz head, or a whole instrumental: the shape of the tune at a glance, aligned so the barlines line up down the page.
Fretlist reads grids two ways, and both draw the same chart. In Chords over Lyrics you use the compact chordsheet.com style, where a space is all that separates one bar from the next. In ChordPro you use the full {start_of_grid} environment, which spells out every beat. This page starts with the simple style, then the full one, then how they convert.
The simple way: a [Grid] block
In Chords over Lyrics, open a grid with [Grid] on its own line and list the bars below it. Separate bars with a space; each chord is one bar:
You type
[Grid] C F Am G
Renders as
CFAmGGive the grid a heading with label, exactly like a [Verse] or [Chorus] section:
You type
[Grid label="Chorus"] C F Am G
Renders as
ChorusCFAmGThe block ends at the first blank line, so a grid and the section after it stay separate.
Two chords in one bar
Glue chords together with an underscore to put more than one in a single bar (a "split bar"):
You type
[Grid] Dm7_G7 Cmaj7 Am7 D7
Renders as
Dm7G7Cmaj7Am7D7Repeats
Wrap bars in parentheses to repeat them. |: and :| work the same way:
You type
[Grid] (C F Am G)
Renders as
CFAmGAdd a play count right after the closing bracket, 3x or x3, to say how many times:
You type
[Grid] (C F Am G)3x
Renders as
CFAmG3xA double barline
Two pipes mark a heavier division, like the end of a section:
You type
[Grid] A B || C D
Renders as
ABCDA note in the grid
A line that is not chords, or one that starts with # or =, becomes a plain note between the rows, handy for a "repeat to fade" or a section cue:
You type
[Grid] C F Am G = Solo Am7 D7 Gmaj7 Gmaj7
Renders as
CFAmGSoloAm7D7Gmaj7Gmaj7The full way: {start_of_grid}
In the ChordPro tab, a grid is an environment between {start_of_grid} and {end_of_grid}. Here a bar is written with real barlines, |, and every beat gets a slot. A dot, ., is a beat with no new chord:
You type
{start_of_grid}
| C . . . | F . G . | Am7 . F . | Dm . . . |
{end_of_grid}Renders as
CFGAm7FDmThis is the form to reach for when the rhythm matters: it places each chord on its beat, and the shared beat count keeps the barlines aligned down every row even when the rows split their beats differently.
A few marks earn their keep here:
~packs two chords into one beat:F~G.%repeats the previous bar.|1…:|2open first and second endings (voltas).shape="1+4x2+1"sets the beats-per-bar the rows align to.
You type
{start_of_grid label="Outro" shape="1+4x2+1"}
A |: C . | F G | Am7 F | Dm . :|
Volta 1 |1 C7 . | C . :|
Volta 2 |2 G7 . | C . |
{end_of_grid}Renders as
OutroACFGAm7FDm1.Volta 1C7C2.Volta 2G7CStrum patterns
A row of strum codes draws the picking hand instead of chords: d down, u up, x a muted hit, with a (arpeggiated), s (staccato), and a trailing + (accent) as modifiers. Join two with ~ for eighth notes:
You type
{start_of_grid shape="1+4x2+1"}
| C . | F . | C . | G . |
|s d dn~up | d dn~up | d dn~up | d u |
{end_of_grid}Renders as
CFCGTwo looks: Flat and Blocks
Grids draw in one of two skins, and you pick the one you like under Settings → Display → Chord grid style. The choice syncs across your devices and applies everywhere a grid appears, including Play Mode.
- Flat is the notation look: thin barlines with the chords sitting between them. It is the default.
- Blocks fills each measure as a rounded panel, so the bars read as tiles.
The chords and barlines land in exactly the same places either way; only the decoration changes, so switching never reflows a chart.
Transposing a grid
Grids transpose with the rest of the song. The transpose and capo controls move grid chords through the same engine as the chords in your lyrics, so a whole chart follows the key you set.
How the two forms convert
Switch editor tabs and Fretlist rewrites the grid to match the view:
- A grid the simple style can express shows as a compact
[Grid]block in Chords over Lyrics and as{start_of_grid}in ChordPro. Either tab round-trips to the other. - A grid that uses something the simple style has no words for, empty beats, a
%repeat, an ending, or a strum row, stays in the{start_of_grid}form in both tabs. Nothing is dropped; the fuller form is simply kept.
So you can write the easy grids the easy way and still open the demanding ones, and no edit costs you a chart you already have. For the two editor styles in general, see Chords over Lyrics and ChordPro.