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Collaboration

The Master

The agreed version of a shared song, assembled deliberately from each writer's tab.

Master is the version of the song you both agree on. It is not anybody's personal tab, and it is not whatever the last person typed. Lines get put there on purpose.

Every shared song has one, at the end of the tab row, in yellow.

The Master tab showing a chorus above a bridge, both in yellow 1
  1. 1Always last in the row
The bridge was sent first. Master still puts the chorus above it.

You cannot type in Master#

This is the thing to understand before anything else. Master is not editable. Tap the words and nothing happens: no cursor, no keyboard. There is no lamp button on this tab either, so no Wish Workshop and no in-line suggestions.

Everything in Master arrived from somebody's tab, and the only things you can do to it are reorder sections, delete them, or pull one back out.

That is deliberate. If Master could be typed into, it would become a fourth draft competing with everyone else's, instead of the agreed version of the other three.

To change a line, pull its section back to your own tab with Send to Me, edit it there, and send it again.

Sending a section to Master#

From your own tab, open Arrange mode, select what you want, and choose Send to Master. What happens next depends on what you selected.

If you selected a whole named section, header and all, the app already knows what it is and files it silently. No prompt.

If you selected loose lines, it asks.

A sheet asking what type of section the selected lines are, listing Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Hook, Post-Chorus and Bridge 1
  1. 1Types Master already holds are marked
Lines with no header of their own have to be told what they are.

Types already in Master carry an exists label, so you can see what you are about to collide with before you pick. A selection spanning several sections asks once per section, with a count of how many are left.

When that section already exists#

A sheet reading Section Exists, offering Add as Chorus 2 or Replace Chorus 12
  1. 1Keep both, numbered
  2. 2Or swap the old one out
Master will not quietly overwrite a section.
  • Add as Chorus 2 keeps both and numbers them.
  • Replace Chorus swaps the existing one out.
  • Cancel abandons that section and moves to the next one waiting.

It files by section, not by arrival#

Master is not a pile in the order things turned up. Sections are held in song order:

Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Hook, Post-Chorus, Bridge, Outro, then anything custom.

In the figure above, the bridge was sent first and the chorus second. Master still shows the chorus first, because that is where a chorus goes.

Reordering and removing#

The yellow button at the bottom right opens Master's own arrange mode. It works in whole sections rather than individual lines, because Master is about structure.

From there you can Move Up and Move Down to reorder, Delete a section, or Send to Me to pull one back into your own tab to work on privately.

What reads from Master#

Master is what the rest of the app treats as the real song.

  • Perform opens on Master by default when one exists.
  • Lyric sheets default to Master, though you can pick any writer's tab instead.