Jam Trainer — bluegrass backing tracks & chord chart editor

Song Cards

Tap to open a song. Tap the X icon to delete it (you'll be asked to confirm).

Global vs. Personal

The globe icon marks songs from the shared global library that everyone can see; the person icon marks your own personal songs. Use the All / My Songs / Global filters at the top of the library to show just one kind.

New Song

Creates a blank song and opens the editor.

Lists

Organize songs into named lists. Tap the list name to expand or collapse it. Add songs from the editor using 📋+. Press the Play button next to the list name to play all songs in the list.

Import / Export

Export saves all songs to a JSON backup file. Import restores songs from a backup.

Back Arrow

Returns to the song library. If you have unsaved notes, lyrics, or resources, you'll be prompted first.

Prev / Next Song

Navigate to the previous or next song in your library (or list).

Song Name

Tap the name field in the top bar to edit it. If you rename a saved song, you'll be asked whether to update the original or save as a new song.

Save

Saves the song including chords, settings, notes, lyrics, and resources.

Undo

Undoes the last chord or section change. Multiple undo steps are supported.

Select Range

Tap to enter range selection mode, then tap a start and end chord tile. Used for copying or setting a loop range.

Copy

Appears after a range is selected. Copies the selected chord tiles to the clipboard.

Loop Selected Range

Appears after a range is selected. Sets those tiles as the loop region during playback. Tap the active loop indicator to clear it.

Paste

Appears when the clipboard has copied tiles. Inserts them after the currently selected tile (or at the end if nothing is selected).

Repeat Song

Sets how many times the full song repeats during playback. ∞ loops forever. Tap to cycle through options.

Arrange

Set a custom playback order for your sections — e.g. Intro, A Part × 2, B Part, A Part. Overrides the default top-to-bottom order.

Add Section

Adds a new empty section to the chart. Tap the section name to rename it, or choose from preset names.

Add to List

Adds this song to one or more lists, or creates a new list. Song must be saved first.

Play / Pause

The large center button of the transport cluster. Tap to start playback (after the count in), tap again to pause, and once more to resume. The chord chart scrolls automatically and the beat dots flash with each beat.

Stop

The square button to the right of Play. Stops playback and returns to the beginning of the song.

Restart

The button to the left of Play. Restarts the song from the top with a fresh count in, whether it's currently playing or paused. While playing, you can also tap anywhere on the chart to pause — a floating Restart · Resume · Stop popup appears over the chart so you can control playback hands-free.

BPM

Tap − or + to adjust tempo by 5 BPM. Tap the number itself to type any value. Each section can also have its own tempo — tap the BPM number in a section header to set it. Changing the main BPM shifts every section by the same amount.

Tap

Set the tempo by tapping to the beat of the song you're listening to.

Time Signature

Set per section — each section header has its own time-signature dropdown (4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 6/8, or 9/8), so one song can change meter between sections. Affects the beats per measure and the beat-dot display for that section.

Auto Speed-Up

Automatically increases the BPM by the chosen amount after each repeat. Great for speed-building practice. Set to 0 to disable.

Song Key

Set the key in the Chord Chart header. It drives transpose and, with a capo, the sounding chord names shown in the chart.

Transpose

Shifts every chord in the chart up or down by one half step.

Sections

Your chart is divided into sections (A Part, B Part, etc.). Tap the section name to rename it or pick from presets. Use ↑↓ arrows to reorder sections.

Section Repeats

Use the − and + buttons next to each section name to set how many times that section repeats during playback.

Chord Tiles

Tap a bar to select it (highlighted border), then tap a note in the footer to set its chord. To add the next bar, tap the green + in the footer (or press Space) — see the Chord Footer section below. Tap a selected bar again to see fingering charts, or the × badge to delete it. Select several bars to change them all at once.

Play From Cell

Tap the small play triangle on any chord tile to start playback from that measure.

Fingering Diagrams

Tap any chord tile a second time to see guitar, banjo, and mandolin fingering diagrams. Change which instruments are shown in Settings.

Adding Measures — the key step

After you set a chord, tap the green + at the right of the keyboard — or press the Space bar — to add the next measure and move to it. That's how you build a chart bar by bar; nothing advances until you do. The red − at the left (or Backspace) deletes the bar to its left.

Chord Keyboard

Tap a note to set the SELECTED bar to that chord (it starts as major, and the cursor stays put). Naturals run across the bottom; sharps and flats sit up top, like piano keys.

Chord Types

The strip below the keyboard — minor, 7th, m7, sus4, and more. The active type is highlighted, and the note you tap next uses it.

Sharps / Flats

The ♯ / ♭ toggle (top-left of the keyboard) switches how accidentals are spelled — as sharps or as flats.

Rest

Adds a whole-rest measure — silent during playback.

Skip

Adds a measure that is shown on the chart but skipped during playback.

Ring (select tile first)

Converts the selected tile to a ringing open strum that sustains.

Stop (select tile first)

Converts the selected tile to a cut-short strum (chucked strum).

Note (select tile first)

Converts the selected tile to a single picked note using the root of the chord.

Root Note (select tile first)

Sets an alternate bass note on the selected chord — e.g. C/G. Opens a note picker.

Split (select tile first)

Splits the selected measure into two half-measures in 4/4 or 2/4 time, or three third-measures in 3/4, 6/8, or 9/8 time.

Insert a Lick

Tap the G Run button to open the lick library (12 pre-made guitar runs). Each lick spans three measures and is automatically transposed to the chord you place it on.

Preview

Tap the ▶ next to any lick to hear it at the current key and tempo before inserting.

Edit & Mix (tap a lick cell)

Tap the first cell of a placed lick to replace or remove it; tap its second or third cell to start a different lick from that point. Double-tap any lick cell to view its tab. Deleting a lick cell reverts it to the plain chord.

Open the Editor

Tap a chord box to select it (or select several boxes for a longer pattern), then tap the Groove button in the chord footer. Groove works on 4/4 chord boxes.

Bass Lane

Each beat is split into four 16th-note slots. In the Bass lane, type a scale degree into a slot — 1 (root), 3, 5, 8 (octave) — or an accidental like b7 or #4. Leave a slot blank for silence. The degrees stay relative to each chord, so the groove follows your key and capo.

Lead-ins

Type L, La, or L5 in a bass slot for a note that leads into the next chord — a half-step below (L), a half-step above (La), or the 5th of the next chord (L5).

Mando Lane

Switch to the Mando lane and tap slots on or off to place chops wherever you want them.

Beats

Use the Beats − / + stepper to make the pattern longer (up to 8 beats). Adding a beat reveals the next box's existing groove, so you can build a riff that spans several measures.

Apply

Apply your groove to the box (the selected box, or a run of boxes), the whole section (the pattern loops through it), or the whole song — which asks first before overwriting sections that already have a groove.

The Volta button

Tap Volta in the chord footer to open the endings panel. It stays open while you tap bars in the chart, so you can mark endings without closing it. Tap ✕ (or tap away) to close.

1st & 2nd endings

Tap the bar where the 1st ending starts, then tap 1; tap the bar where the 2nd ending starts, then tap 2. Bars from 1 up to (but not including) 2 play the first time through; from 2 onward play on the repeat. The chart marks each with a small 1. / 2. tab, and the section is set to repeat automatically. Tap a number again on its start bar to clear that ending.

To Coda & the Coda section

Tap the bar to jump from, then tap To Coda in the Volta panel; then add a section and name it "Coda". On the last time through, playback plays up to the To Coda bar, then jumps to the Coda to finish.

The Coda plays on the last loop only

Set Repeat Song (the ∞ / N× control) to how many times the song should play. The Coda is taken only on the final time through — so at ∞ (loops forever) the Coda never plays; set a number to hear it. On the final loop, the bars after the To Coda mark dim to show they'll be skipped.

Notes

Freeform text notes — song history, tuning tips, capo positions, etc.

Lyrics

Type or paste lyrics to keep them alongside your chord chart.

Resources

Add links to recordings, lesson videos, or reference material. YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp URLs automatically fetch the title.

Saving Changes

Notes, lyrics, and resources are not saved automatically. Use the Save button. If you try to leave with unsaved changes, you'll be prompted.

Capo

Adjusts the displayed chord names to account for a capo. You can also show the sounding chord names alongside the capo shapes.

Count In

Adds a metronome count in before playback begins. Options to count in on every repeat or use a double-length count in.

Audio / Mix

Turn each instrument on or off and set its volume — guitar, mandolin, bass, banjo, spoons, and the metronome. The metronome plays alongside the band (mute the instruments if you want the click on its own) and uses the voice and subdivisions you set on Tools → Metronome, at this song's tempo. Toggle Walking Notes (guitar approach notes into the next chord) and Walking Bass. Use Save Mix to Song to store the current mix with this song.

Swing

A single slider from 0% (straight, even eighth notes) through full triplet swing to 100% (hard shuffle). Hidden for 6/8 and 9/8, which are already triplet-based.

Chart Display

Show chords as letter names (G, C, D) or Nashville numbers (1, 4, 5). Toggle slash marks. Choose which instruments show fingering diagrams.

Print

Print the chord chart, the lyrics, a tab, and your notes — any combination, in one printout. Tick the parts you want; anything this song doesn't have is dimmed. Choose the font size, which instrument fingering diagrams to include, and whether each part starts on its own page (handy for handing the lyric sheet to the singer and the tab to the picker). Everything prints black-on-white whatever your screen theme, and "Save as PDF" in the print dialog works the same way.

Tools — Instrument Tuner

Open Tools from the left rail (desktop) or the bottom bar (mobile). The Tuner tab is a microphone tuner. Chromatic mode reads any note on any instrument; the guitar, banjo, mandolin, and bass presets add string-by-string targets plus Equal / Sweetened / James Taylor tuning styles. Every mode has a reference drone.

Tools — Metronome

The second tab of the Tools page. Set tempo by dragging the dial or tapping TAP, pick beats per measure, and shape the click with the five mix faders (accent · quarter · eighth · sixteenth · triplet). Pick a Voice — drum kits (Dry / Country / Rock), a Bluegrass voice (mandolin chop + spoons), Cowbell, Rim, a spoken Count, or synth clicks. The Coach adds Quiet Count (mutes bars to test your timing) and Tempo Up (gradually speeds up). The Metrognome rocks in time, crossing center on every beat.

Tools — Chords & Scales

The last two tabs of the Tools page. Chords browses fingering diagrams for any chord on guitar, banjo, or mandolin; Scales shows scale shapes by key. Open Tools from the left rail (desktop) or the bottom bar (mobile).

Play View (default)

Songs open in Play View — a clean, large chord-only view for performing at a jam. It hides the editing tools and beat dots, auto-sizes the chord names to fill the screen, and keeps the screen awake. Switch between views from the navigation: the Play / Edit / Tab / Lyrics buttons in the side rail (desktop) or the Views button in the bottom bar (mobile).

Edit View

The chord chart editor — where you build and change the chart: add sections, enter chords, set repeats, time signatures, and capo. Switch to it with the Edit button in the side rail (desktop) or Views → Edit in the bottom bar (mobile); switch back to Play when you're ready to perform.

Tab View

A read-only ASCII tab for the song that highlights along with playback (two measures per line). Switch to it with the Tab button in the side rail (desktop) or Views → Tab (mobile). It replaces the chord chart while it's on — switch back to Play or Edit to return to the chart.

Lyrics View

A big, easy-to-read chords-over-lyrics page for singing at a jam. Paste your lyric sheet into the Lyrics field in the editor, then switch to Lyrics View. Use the ▶ Scroll button for hands-free teleprompter scrolling, the 🐢/🐇 buttons to set the scroll speed, and A−/A+ to size the text. The Save button (far left) and a ⋯ menu round out the toolbar. In that menu: Link to chart, Arrange, show/hide the “/” rhythm marks, Hide chords (words only, with the chord row and its gap removed so the lyrics can be as big as possible), and Chords inline — which moves the chords into the line of words in brackets, [G] like this, instead of stacking them on a row above. Inline fits roughly twice as many words on screen, so it's the one to use on a music stand; a chord that lands in the middle of a word splits it with hyphens (a-[G]-bide). Your pasted lyrics are never rewritten, so you can switch back and forth freely, and the printout follows whichever you're using. The screen stays awake the whole time it's open.

Link Lyrics to Chart

Open ⋯ → Link to chart to place each chord from your chart over the exact word it lands on. Once linked, the chords sit above your lyrics with rhythm “/” marks between them (which you can hide from the ⋯ menu), and the current chord highlights as the song plays. Need to fix a typo? In the Link window tap ✎ Edit words — the chords stay glued to their letters as you edit, and your changes sync back to the Lyrics field. Chord changes where nothing is sung (an instrumental gap or a turnaround at the end of a line)? Type a “-” into the lyrics as a placeholder for each of those chords, then link to it like a word. Use ⋯ → Arrange to set the jam order — which verse each pass sings and how many instrumental breaks.

Share Link

Creates a link to this song. The recipient opens it and can Save it to their own library. Your current mix travels with the link.

Embed Link

Get an iframe snippet to embed a locked, play-only version of the song on a website. Publisher and complimentary accounts only.

Host a Session

Starts a live Jam Session and shows a 4-digit code (in the menu under Host a Session). Anyone who joins follows your playback and receives the current song and mix.

Join a Session

Enter the host's 4-digit code to follow along. If you don't already have the host's song, a banner lets you Save it to My Library.

Export MP3

Renders the full song — honoring your arrangement and section repeats — to a downloadable MP3 file, including the count in if it's enabled. Found in the menu (☰). Publisher and complimentary accounts only.

Name That Chord

Listen to a chord and identify its quality (major, minor, 7th, etc.) — or turn on Name It to identify the full chord name. Choose which chord types are in the pool with the presets.

Degree Trainer

Hear a note and name its scale degree relative to the key — great for learning the Nashville number system by ear.

Chord Tones

A chord plays, then a single note — identify its scale degree above the root (1, ♭2, 2, ♭3, 3 … up to all 12 chromatic tones). Start with the Triad preset, expand to the Scale or All 12 as your ear sharpens.

Number Trainer

No listening — a sight drill for the Nashville number system. You're given a key and a number and pick the chord, or given a key and chord and pick the number. Remember: a bare number is always major (in the key of C, 2 is D); a modifier makes it another quality (2− is Dm). Flip direction, pin a key or shuffle, switch major/minor keys, and add qualities (7ths, dim, aug) with ⚙ Qualities.

Scoring

Each game tracks your score, current streak, and best streak. Open Games from the left rail (desktop) or the bottom bar (mobile).

Themes

Choose Default, Colorblind, Night, or High Contrast from the Accessibility group in the menu (☰).

Foot Pedal / Page Turner

Map a Bluetooth foot pedal so you can start, pause, and stop playback hands-free while you play. Set each pedal button under Accessibility in the menu.

Spacebar / Pedal Action

Choose whether the spacebar and the pedal's play key Pause or Stop during playback.