To start with a blank slate, use the Start New Song button on the home page.
Woodshedin' is based on the MusicXML standard, so if you happen to have a MusicXML version of your song, you can upload it using the Upload Song button.
Once you're a registered user, you will see a list of your songs on the home page, stored songs in shades of gray, and open songs in shades of green. Click one of the songs to load it.
Once you have a song, you will be presented with the song editor, the main view for Woodshedin', which displays an editable leadsheet for the song.
At the top of the leadsheet, you can edit the title, subtitle, composer, and lyricist of the song (For new songs, an initial whimsical title will be generated for you at random).
If you hover with the mouse over a measure, you will see a pattern of vertical grid lines, representing triplets for swing styles, or eighths for non-swung styles. Your initial tool is the note cursor: . Clicking in the measure using this tool will place a note extending from the selected grid line to the next existing note/rest, or to the end of the measure if you're past the last note/rest in the measure.
By default, the pitch of the note will match the key signature. Pressing the alt/option key while clicking will add a flat. Pressing the windows/command key will add a sharp. Pressing both keys will add a natural (cancelling a previous accidental, or the key signature). Alternatively (e.g. if you're working on a touch screen device), you can click the , , or buttons to set an accidental for your next note.
To place a rest, click the button or press r. By default, after the rest is placed, editing will resume in note mode. To place multiple rests, double click the button or press R.
The ⌫ button or the DEL key will let you delete a note (and extend the duration of their predecessor). To delete multiple notes, double click the ⌫ button or press Shift-DEL
Sometimes you need to connect two notes. Use the
tool to edit ties—connections between identical pitches. A single click, or the t key, will let you extend a note to the next note, or into the next measure. A double click, or the T key, will let you place multiple ties: Clicking a note will extend it. Clicking again will break the tie. As an additional convenience, the ALT-t (Or Option-t on Mac) key will tie the last note placed.
Use the (rather similar looking)
tool to edit slurs—connections between different pitches. A single click, or the s key, will place a slur from a note to the next not. A double click, or the S key, will toggle a slur between the notes you click and their successors. The ALT-s (Or Option-s on Mac) key will place a slur between the last two notes placed.
By default, Woodshedin' assumes that each quarter note beat is subdivided into identical
pieces (eighth triplets for swing, eights for non-swung). But sometimes, you need a different
division of a region (e.g. to place triplets in a bossa nova song). To do so, use the
tool or press u, and click the beginning note of that region. The dialog will let you choose:
i.e. selecting a quarter note and a 3:2 modification will replace the next half note by three quarter triplets.
The same mechanism is also available to subdivide notes in straight ratios. Selecting an eighth note and
a 2:1 modification will split the note into two sixteenths, a 4:1 modification
will split into 4 thirty-second notes.
A double click on the tool, or the U key, will let you edit multiple tuplets.
Some common transformations have special keys:
2 will split a quarter, straight eighth, or sixteenth note into two equal halves.3 will create a triplet from either
4 will create a 4:3 tuplet from three or more notes whose duration adds up to three powers of two (three quarters, three eighthts, etc.)5 will create a 5:4 tuplet from 4 or more notes or a single half or whole note, analogous to triplets.6 will create a 6:4 tuplet from 4 or more notes or a single half or whole note.7 will create a 7:4 tuplet from 4 or more notes or a single half or whole note.9 will create a 9:4 tuplet from 8 or more notes or a single half or whole note.To enter chords, click in the shaded zone above the measures, and enter the chord in ASCII form (A#13, Gmaj9, Dm7b5, etc), or "N.C." for silencing the harmony. To quickly enter several chords in a row, you can press TAB to advance by a quarter beat, and Shift-TAB to retreat.
To enter lyrics, click in the shaded zone below the measures, aligned with a note, and enter your lyrics.
- for a syllable break._. So you would write something like "Me_has de-ja-do_en el a-ban-do-no".TAB, retreat with Shift-TAB
Select a range of measures with a mouse drag, or by clicking before the first measure, then shift-clicking after the last.
When a range is selected, an additional palette will be shown. Use to add repeat instructions to a range of measures. Select the end of a repeat (or just beyond it) and use to add endings to the repeat.
Select a point between two measures by clicking on the barline. An additional palette will be shown. Use to start a new line in the score. Use to start a new page.
Some songs have a coda, a separate ending section. Use to mark the beginning of the coda, and to mark the point at which the song should jump to the coda the last time through. Use the segno, to mark the location at which repeats of the song should start.
To help communication in complex charts, you can use to place a rehearsal mark
Use the standard editing commands in the Edit menu to cut, copy, and paste measures. You can delete the melody or just the lyrics in the selection. The Insert Measure command will insert a new, blank measure at the selection point.
To correct a mistake, you can Undo/Redo as many actions as you like.
The music in each measure is controlled by numerous parameters, which can be edited in the Properties window. You can bring up the properties window by clicking on a clef, or by double clicking on a bar line. In either case, the changes you make to the properties will apply to all measures from the point you clicked to the next property change in the song.
Up in the Transpose section, the melody is transposed up instead. If you just want to change the key without transposing the melody, select Don't.2 for dividing quarter notes into two eighth notes — suitable for latin jazz and slow ballads.3 for dividing quarter notes into three eighth triplets — suitable for swing tunes, where written eighth pairs will typically be played as a 2:1 ratio.Groove→Select... will bring up a list of the more than 100 styles supported by MMA.To rehearse a song or listen whether you've accurately entered it, click the button to enter playback mode. This will generate a MIDI version of the song using MMA (Musical MIDI Accompaniment). In playback mode, you will see standard audio controls to play back the song in the style you've selected in the properties editor, to fast forward and rewind it, and to adjust the playback rate.
When you first start using Woodshedin', you are considered a Guest user. This allows you to use most functionality without having to give us any personal details.
For the functionality that's not available, there are workarounds:
Save command won't work. Instead, select the Song→Generate→MusicXML menu item, which will download the song to your disk.Upload Song button on the homepage.Eventually, you might find it more convenient to identify yourself to Woodshedin'. This works by logging into one of the supported cloud storage sites and giving Woodshedin' permission to access files in your account on your behalf. Click the Sign In button on the home page (or in the upper right hand corner of the song editor), and you will be presented with the login page. Go through one of the connection options described below.
By default, once you log in, you remain logged in on that computer until you click the Sign Out button on the home page, or select the corresponding menu item in the top right menu of the song editor. If you're sharing your computer with other users, click the Public terminal, don't stay logged in button at the bottom of your page and quit your browser when you're done working with Woodshedin'.
In order to keep you logged in, we store a cookie on your computer. See our privacy policy for details, and for your rights.
You may already be familiar with Dropbox, a popular cloud storage site which will mirror to a local folder on your computer. To connect Woodshedin' to your Dropbox account, click the Connect to Dropbox button, which will take you through a Dropbox login procedure. If you accept the login, Woodshedin' will be able to read and write the Apps/Woodshedin folder in your Dropbox, but will have absolutely no access to any of your other files.
Box is a fairly similar alternative to Dropbox. To connect Woodshedin' to your Box account, click the Connect to Box button, which will take you through a Box login procedure. If you accept the login, Woodshedin' will read and write the contents of the Woodshedin' folder in your Box account (creating one if needed), although it technically will have access to your entire Box account.
Nextcloud and ownCloud are two closely related open source cloud storage platforms (While this manual will mainly mention Nextcloud, everything related to it also applies to ownCloud). While there are shared hosting options for them, the major appeal of these platforms is that you can self-host your own storage servers instead of trusting your data to a shared cloud.
To connect to a Nextcloud or ownCloud server:
Settings in the popup menu at the top right of your page.Security page in the Personal section and scroll to the bottom.App Name field and click Create new app password.Done button. Once you do this, there is no way to retrieve the password anymore—you'll have to delete it and create a new one.Nextcloud section and click the Connect to Nextcloud button.Woodshedin' will read and write the contents of the Woodshedin' folder in your account, although it technically will have access to your entire account.
Saving a song requires signing in to Woodshedin' (but you can download the song if you're a Guest). Select the Song→Save menu item, and your song will be written in a new folder on your storage site. In the folder, you will find some of the following representations:
MusicXML is a published standard, and in principle this representation is interoperable with a range of other music software (though some details may not translate perfectly). Notably, we occasionally test interoperability with Finale, MuseScore, and Band-in-a-Box.
By default, Woodshedin' saves the MusicXML, PDF, and WAV representations. In the Settings dialog, you can configure the representations to be stored (MusicXML is mandatory, as that's the only format that can be loaded back in).
By default, songs will be saved under their title, into a folder also named by their title. To change this (e.g. to save multiple variations of a song, or an optional verse, in the same folder, use the Song→Save As… menu item to bring up a dialog that lets you specify the details).
Once you've connected to a cloud storage account, the homepage will display a list of songs available in the current account (monochrome background), preceded by a list of songs currently open on your behalf (green background).
If you're logged into a cloud account and have a list of songs on the homepage, you will see a few icon buttons at the right of each song.
The button will close a song open in some other tab.
The button will delete all representations of a song, and its containing folder if it would be left empty by the operation.
The button will bring up a dialog to rename/move a song, either the file names of the representations, the folder the song is stored in, or both.
If you save a song or select the Song→Generate→PDF menu item, Woodshedin' will employ the LilyPond music typesetting software to produce a much nicer looking version of the song as a PDF file that you can then print. Song→Print generates the PDF file and offers to print it immediately.
I would not recommend using your browser's Print command directly, as the output produced will be vastly inferior to what LilyPond generates.
The Song→Print Format... dialog controls the look of the generated PDF. The most important choices are the Paper Size (feel free to request additional choices if warranted) and the fonts to be used for the music, chord symbols, and lyrics, respectively.
In addition, you can tune a variety of options related to font sizes and spacing.
The Page Count button will compute how many pages the song will take up at the current settings.
Once you've found a printed look you like, you can save it using the icons at the top of the Print Format dialog, so it's available in the style menu. Some styles are immutable and listed at the bottom in the System styles section. If you change and save them, a corresponding user style will be created.
The icons will let you save changes to a style, revert changes to the last stored version of the style, duplicate an existing style, or rename or delete a user style.
You may find it useful to share a visual or audio representation of your song with others. Woodshedin' offers a range of sharing options through popular hosting sites (Please do not share links to songs on this site directly with others—it can put a strain on our server, and will eventually cease to work). You can connect to these sites on the Settings page, reachable from the home page or the top right popup menu on a song page.
imgbb account and loading api.imgbb.com.Once you've connected to one or several sharing sites, the Song→Share submenu will be populated with the available choices. Selecting one of them will generate the appropriate representation of the song, upload it to the sharing site, and take you to the shared representation for further disposition.
Woodshedin' is built on top of a sizable stack of technologies: