LeadSheets
Craft your music effortlessly with Leadsheets! Write song lyrics and chords, and enhance them with tabs and sheet music in PDF or image formats. Include bpm, duration, and notes for a complete musical experience.
Organise your performances with ease by creating setlists, where the duration is automatically calculated. Collaborate seamlessly with your band by sharing your song library and setlists via iCloud.
Explore your music in a musical grid or singer chord layout. While viewing a song, play the audio track from your Apple Music or Spotify library. If a song is missing, get a quick link to purchase it on the iTunes Store.
Easily transpose chords and export your musical grid and singer chord views to PDF for sharing with those who don’t use Leadsheets.
Annotate using your Apple Pencil and assign roles to your sheet music.
If you’re an Apple Music user, enjoy listening to your entire setlist. Export your setlist to a tab-separated list for further use.
CONTACT
CONTACT
USER MANUAL
Welcome to LeadSheets! Designed for musicians, bandleaders, and worship teams, LeadSheets is your all-in-one digital binder. Whether you rely on chord charts, lyrics, or full PDF sheet music, LeadSheets keeps your entire band on the same page.
Below is your complete guide to mastering the app.
1. The Song Library
The Library is the heart of your app. Here, you can view, search, and manage your entire catalog of music.
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Search & Filter: Use the search bar at the top to quickly find songs by Title or Artist.
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Add a New Song: Tap the "+" icon in the top right to open the Song Editor and create a new entry.
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Swipe Actions: Swipe left on any song in your list to instantly export it, or tap and hold (right-click on Mac) to bring up a menu to Export or Delete the song.
2. The Song Editor
When you add or edit a song, you have a powerful suite of tools to format your music exactly how you need it.
Song Details
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Basic Info: Enter the Title, Artist, and any specific notes (e.g., "Acoustic intro only").
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Find Chords Online: Tap the Safari icon to instantly search the web for the song's chords. Any text you can copy can be pasted using the paste button in the editor.
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BPM & Duration: Type in your tempo and song length, or use the Wand Icon to attempt to fetch the BPM automatically from your Apple Music library. You can also tap the Hand Icon to manually tap out the tempo!
Scores & Sheet Music
If you use traditional sheet music, you can attach PDFs or images directly to the song.
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Add Files: Tap "Add PDF" or "Add Photos" to import your sheet music.
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Assign Musicians: This is a core feature! Tap the dropdown next to an imported score (e.g., "Unassigned") to assign it to a specific musician role (like Bass, Drums, or Lead Guitar).
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Edit Musicians: Tap "Edit Musicians..." to add new roles to your band. When a musician selects their role in the song view, they will only see the sheet music assigned to them!
Lyrics & Chords
LeadSheets uses an intuitive line-by-line builder for text charts.
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Plain Text: Standard lyrics.
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Song Chords: Type chords above the lyrics. LeadSheets will automatically detect them for transposition later!
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Musicians Grid: Type chords in bars. Use repetition signs and time signatures.
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Remarks: Use these for section headers (e.g., CHORUS, VERSE 1).
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Formatting Tricks: Use brackets for inline cues like [Acoustic Only], or type x4 at the end of a line to automatically highlight repeat markers in orange.
Row actions
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On Mac, you can simply right-click a line to open a contextual menu. This allows you to create a new line, duplicate a line or section and delete a line or a section.
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On iPad and iPhone, those actions are available by a left or right swipe or a long press.
3. Viewing & Playing Songs
When you tap on a song, you enter the Performance View. The toolbar at the top (or top-right) gives you total control over how you see and hear the music.
View Modes
Use the segmented control to switch how the song is displayed:
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Chords & Lyrics (Guitar Icon): Displays the full text chart with chords and bar lines in a musicians grid.
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Singer Mode (Microphone Icon): Displays the full text chart with chords aligned above the lyrics. For sections without lyrics, the musicians grid will be shown
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Sheet Music (Document Icon): Displays your attached PDFs and images. If you assigned roles, use the Musician Dropdown to filter the PDFs so you only see your specific instrument's part.
4. Setlists
Keep your gigs organized by grouping songs into Setlists.
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Create a Setlist: Navigate to the Setlists tab and tap the "+" icon to create a new list.
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Add Songs: Open a Setlist and tap the "+" icon to add songs from your Library.
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Reorder: Tap the "Edit" button to drag and drop songs into the perfect performance order.
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Live Metrics: As you build your setlist, the app automatically calculates the total number of songs and the estimated total performance duration based on the lengths you saved in the Song Editor.
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Setlist Player: Tap the first song in your setlist. Use the bottom navigation arrows (or swipe left/right on your screen) to seamlessly flip to the next song in the set without going back to the menu!
5. Exporting & Sharing
LeadSheets makes it incredibly easy to share music with your bandmates.
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Export PDFs: While viewing a song, tap the Share icon to generate a beautifully formatted PDF of your chord chart.
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Share Setlists: Open a setlist, tap the Share icon, and choose "Export Data (.bandset)". This generates a custom file containing all the songs, chords, and PDFs in that set. Your bandmates can open this file on their devices to instantly import the entire gig!
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Export Text Lists: Need to print a setlist for the stage? Choose "Export Text List (.tsv)" to generate a spreadsheet-friendly text list of your set.
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Bulk Import/Export: Use the Document arrows in the main Library toolbar to backup your entire catalog or import multiple songs at once.
6. Settings
Tap the Gear Icon on the main screen to access your app preferences.
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Theme: Force the app into Light Mode, Dark Mode, or match your device's System setting.
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Music Service: Choose whether the Play button links to Apple Music or Spotify for your backing tracks. (Note for Mac users: Spotify requires the desktop app to be open).
Transposition & Formatting
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Transpose: Tap the Tuning Fork icon to instantly transpose the song's chords into any key.
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Accidentals: Toggle between Sharps (♯) and Flats (♭) to format the chords exactly how you prefer to read them.
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Annotate (Pencil Icon): While viewing a PDF score, tap the pencil icon to draw, highlight, or take notes directly on the sheet music.
Audio Playback & Metronome
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Backing Tracks: Tap the Play button to automatically search for and play the song via Apple Music or Spotify (you can choose your preferred service in the app Settings).
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Visual Metronome: If a song has a BPM saved, a pulsing metronome icon will appear in the toolbar to help you lock in the tempo before counting off the band.
PRIVACY POLICY
Effective Date: 15 July 2026
This Privacy Policy explains the privacy practices for LeadSheets (the "App"), developed by Peter Vandewalle ("we," "us," or "our").
Our privacy philosophy is very simple: We do not collect, store, or share your personal data.
1. Data Collection and Storage
LeadSheets is a file-based application. All data, files, and content you create or manage within the App are stored either:
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Locally on your device.
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In your personal Apple iCloud account (if you choose to enable iCloud syncing).
We do not have servers, and we do not have access to any of the files, text, metadata, or other content you create using the App. Your data remains entirely under your control.
2. No Third-Party Tracking
We do not include any third-party tracking, advertising, or analytics frameworks (such as Google Analytics, Firebase, or Meta SDKs) within the App. We do not track your behavior across other apps or websites.
3. Information Provided by Apple
The only information we receive regarding your use of the App comes directly from Apple via App Store Connect. This data is strictly anonymous and aggregated. It includes:
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App download and sales metrics.
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Aggregated crash reports and performance data (only if you have opted-in to share this information with developers through your device's iOS/macOS settings).