User Guide

Chapter 6: Band-in-a-Box PowerGuide 55
You can disable the ending for a certain song. You can disable the endings for
all songs by clearing the checkmark for the “Allow Any Endings” setting in the
Edit | Preferences menu item.
Start the 2 bar ending early The usual Band-in-a-Box ending is 2 bars
appended to the end of the song. This new option gives you an alternative to
end the song on the last bar of the song. Band-in-a-Box will still play an ending
on the chord that you specify, and the ending will occur as a 2 bar phrase
beginning 2 bars before the end of the form. This results in more natural
endings for many songs.
For example, the song Old Folks At Home is a 32-bar chorus song from bar 1 to
bar 32. It ends with the last melody note on bar 31 with the word “home,” but
Band-in-a-Box normally plays a 2 bar ending, starting at the end of bar 32 and
going for 2 bars more. For a song like this, it is more natural to end the song at
the end of bar 32.
To set this in Band-in-a-Box choose the Song | Additional Song Settings… item
and set “Start the ending 2 bars early” to true.
The Chordsheet
The chordsheet is a spreadsheet where the numbered cells represent bars of
music. The chord changes for the song are shown in the corresponding bars.
Band-in-a-Box chordsheet area.
As well as entering the chords for your song, the chordsheet is where you put in
style variations, fills, and breaks. Band-in-a-Box gives you lots of easy ways to
enter song information into the chordsheet, but first we’ll go over the basics.
Typing Chords
The basic way of entering a song in Band-in-a-Box is by typing the chords for
the song into the chordsheet.
The location of the black highlight cell determines
where chords are entered. Use either the mouse or
the cursor arrow keys on the computer keyboard to