Coming soon.

How XP Is Earned

There are two ways to earn XP:

• Active practice: students earn 1 XP per minute of active engagement — viewing lessons, watching videos, listening to audio, or practising sheets.
• Trophies: when a teacher awards a trophy, the trophy's point value is added as XP.

Tier Overview

The 50 levels are grouped into seven tiers. Each tier has its own title and badge colour.

All 50 Levels

The XP required for each level follows an exponential curve. Early levels are quick to reach; higher levels take progressively more practice.

Data Loss Prevention

Losing personal data is a nightmare. Losing company data — including work you and your team depend on — is a disaster. That is why Exerzisor takes extra steps to make sure you only delete files that are truly no longer in use.

Step 1: Delete Warning In Testing

The moment a user tries to delete a file, a confirmation dialog appears. It shows exactly who currently has access to that file and where it is used — for example: "This file is shared with Anna and Ben in Lesson 3 and Lesson 7." This gives you a chance to think twice before going through with the deletion.

Step 2: Trash Folder In Testing

When an administrator enables the trash feature for the organisation, deleted files are not removed immediately. Instead, they are moved to a trash folder and kept for 30 days.

While a file is in the trash, students can no longer see it. For example, if a teacher deletes a file that is shared with a student in a lesson, the student will lose access right away — even though the file still exists in the teacher's trash.

Once the teacher restores the file, all previous sharing is restored as well. Every student who had access before the deletion will have access again, without any extra steps. This means that if a file is deleted by accident and many students are affected, the teacher can simply restore it and everything goes back to normal.

Step 3: Retention Coming Soon

Administrators can opt in themselves and their teachers to a file retention policy. When retention is active, files remain recoverable even after they have been permanently deleted — or removed from the trash, if trash is enabled.

Admins choose a retention period that fits their organisation: 30, 90, 180, or 365 days, or forever. During that window, every file from opted-in teachers is preserved behind the scenes.

From a dedicated retention dashboard, admins can browse all files belonging to opted-in teachers — both live files and deleted ones. The dashboard supports searching by file name, date, teacher, and deletion status, making it easy to find exactly what is needed.

When a file needs to come back, admins have several options:

• View or download: open the file directly or download a copy without changing anything in the system.
• Export: place a copy of the file into the teacher's file library inside a timestamped folder (e.g. export_2026_05_02), so the teacher can decide what to do with it.
• Full restore: restore the file to its original state, including all student and lesson associations. Everything is recovered exactly as it was before deletion — the same students see the same file in the same lessons.

Step 4: Infrastructure-Level Backup

Behind the scenes, Exerzisor stores every file in two separate storage buckets from two independent providers. The primary bucket — used by the application and its users — runs on Cloudflare R2. The second bucket acts as a real-time backup and is hosted on AWS S3.

Every file uploaded to the primary bucket is mirrored by Exerzisor to the backup bucket in near real-time. When a file is eventually deleted by a user — after the trash period and any retention policy have expired — it is removed from the primary bucket. On the backup bucket, however, all modified and deleted files are retained for a minimum of 180 additional days.

This extra layer exists purely for disaster recovery: configuration mistakes, third-party attacks, ransomware, or any scenario where data is wiped unexpectedly. Even if everything in the primary bucket is lost, the version history on the backup bucket allows us to restore the affected files.

Please note: this infrastructure-level backup is not a self-service feature. It is a last-resort safety net operated by the Exerzisor team and is only used in the event of a genuine disaster.

A chord sheet in Exerzisor is a song document where chord names are displayed directly above the corresponding lyrics, so the player always knows which chord to play at which word. You can attach an audio file, add beat counts, include strumming patterns, transpose the key on the fly, and share the result with students via a link — no account needed on their end.

This guide walks through everything from creating your first chord sheet to what a student sees when they open your share link.

Creating a Chord Sheet

Step 1 — Find the Chord Sheets Page

In the top navigation bar, open the Sheets dropdown and click Chord Sheets. This takes you to your Chord Sheets list — a page that shows all the chord sheets you have created so far. If you have none yet, it will be empty.

Step 2 — Click “New Chord Sheet”

At the top-right of the Chord Sheets list page, click the New Chord Sheet button. This opens the creation form.

Step 3 — Fill In the Form Fields

The form has the following fields, in order from top to bottom:

Title (required)

The name of the song or piece. This is required — you cannot save without it. It appears at the top of the chord sheet page and in your list.

Artist (optional)

The artist or band name. If you fill this in, it appears below the title in smaller gray text. Leave it blank if it is not relevant.

Instrument (optional)

A dropdown where you choose the instrument this chord sheet is written for (for example, Guitar or Piano). Setting an instrument enables chord diagram support — Exerzisor will automatically show fingering diagrams in the sidebar for every chord used in the song. If you have an instrument set on your teacher profile, Exerzisor will suggest it automatically with a green notice underneath the dropdown.

Source Text (required)

This is the heart of the chord sheet. You paste or type the full song text here, using a plain-text format where chord names sit above the corresponding lyrics. See How to Format the Source Text below for the exact rules. A live preview updates automatically as you type.

Audio File (optional)

An audio recording to attach to this chord sheet. See Attaching an Audio File below for details.

Step 4 — Write the Source Text

The Source Text field uses a simple plain-text format. You do not need any special software — it is just text. Here is how it works:

Chord names go above the lyrics. Place the chord name on its own line directly above the lyric line. Use spaces to push the chord name to the position in the line where you want it to be played:

Am              G         C
These are the lyrics below the chords
F               G         Am
And another line continuing the song

Section headers go in square brackets on their own line. They become clickable jump links in the sidebar:

[Verse 1]
Am              G
First verse lyrics here

[Chorus]
C        G       Am      F
The chorus lyrics go here

Chord-only sheets (no lyrics) also work. Just put the chord names with no lyrics underneath:

[Intro]
Am  G  C  F

[Verse]
Am  Am  G  G
F   F   C  C

Metadata like key, capo, BPM, and tuning can be embedded as a comment at the top of the source text in curly braces. Exerzisor reads these automatically and displays them as info badges:

{key: Am, capo: 2, bpm: 120}

[Verse 1]
Am   G   C   F
Lyrics start here

As soon as you start typing or pasting, a live preview appears below the Source Text field. The preview shows exactly how the chord sheet will look to your students. A green info box at the top of the preview also confirms what Exerzisor detected, for example: “Detected: Am, Capo 2, 24 chords”. If no chords are detected, an amber warning appears instead.

Step 5 — Attach an Audio File (optional)

You can pair a chord sheet with an audio recording so that students can listen while following along. The audio player appears at the bottom of the screen, and — if you set up sync points — it can highlight the currently-playing chord in real time.

To attach audio, scroll to the Audio File section of the form. You have two options:

• Upload a new file: click the dashed upload area (it says “Upload an audio file (MP3, WAV, FLAC, ...)”). A file picker opens. Select your audio file and it will upload automatically. While it uploads, the label changes to “Uploading...”. Once done, you will see the filename with a green checkmark and a red Delete button in case you change your mind.
• Use an existing file: below the upload area there is a dropdown labelled “Or select an existing audio file”. This lists all the audio files already in your file library. Pick one from the dropdown to attach it without re-uploading.

If you later want to swap the audio for a different file, come back to the edit form. The upload area will say “Replace audio file” to make this clear.

Step 6 — Save

When you are happy with the form, scroll to the bottom and click the Create button (indigo, right-aligned). Exerzisor saves the chord sheet and takes you straight to the chord sheet viewer page.

If the Create button is grayed out and cannot be clicked, check that you have filled in both the Title and the Source Text fields — those two are required.

Viewing Your Chord Sheet

After saving, you land on the chord sheet viewer. This is also what you see whenever you click a chord sheet from your list. The page has three main areas: a controls bar across the top, the chord sheet content in the centre, and a right sidebar with sections and chord diagrams. If you attached audio, a sticky audio player sits at the bottom.

The Top Buttons

In the top-right area of the page, above the controls bar, you will find these action buttons:

• Sync Mode (only visible if audio is attached) — activates a sync editor so you can mark which chord plays at which point in the audio. When Sync Mode is active, the button turns amber.
• Share — opens the share modal where you create links to send to students. See Sharing Chord Sheets below.
• Edit (pencil icon) — takes you back to the form to change the title, source text, instrument, audio, beat counts, or strumming patterns.
• Delete (trash icon) — permanently deletes the chord sheet after a confirmation prompt.

The Controls Bar

The controls bar is a white strip below the title. It contains everything you need to adjust the display. Here is each control from left to right:

Transpose

Click the − button to shift all chords down by one semitone, or the + button to shift them up. The current transposition is shown between the two buttons. If the source text includes a key (e.g., {key: Am}), the display shows the original key and the new key side by side, like Am → Bm (+2). When the key is in its original position the display simply shows 0. A Reset link appears whenever you have transposed away from the original — click it to snap back instantly.

Font Size

Four buttons labelled S, M, L, and XL control how large the text is. The active size has an indigo background. M is the default. Use L or XL when projecting on a screen or when a student needs larger text.

Metadata Badges

If the source text contains metadata, it is shown here as coloured pill badges:

• Key: Am (gray pill) — the current key, updated live when you transpose.
• Capo 2 (amber pill) — the capo position, exactly as written in the source text.
• BPM: 120 (blue pill) — the tempo.
• Tuning: Drop D (purple pill) — the guitar tuning.
• ♫ N sync points (green pill) — appears once you have saved audio sync points, showing the total count.

Auto-scroll

This button only appears when the chord sheet has audio sync points saved. When active (green), the page automatically scrolls to keep the currently-playing chord visible while the audio plays. Click the button again to turn it off (gray) if you prefer to scroll manually.

Print

Click the printer icon labelled Print to open the browser print dialog. The printed version is clean — the controls bar, sidebar, and audio player are all hidden, leaving just the chord sheet content.

Hide / Show Sidebar

On the far right of the controls bar is a text link that says Hide sidebar or Show sidebar. Click it to collapse or expand the right sidebar. The chord sheet content expands to fill the full width when the sidebar is hidden.

The Right Sidebar

The right sidebar has two sections stacked vertically:

Sections

Any section header you wrote in square brackets in the Source Text (like [Verse 1] or [Chorus]) appears here as a clickable button. Click a section name to jump straight to that part of the chord sheet. This is especially useful for longer songs with many sections.

Chord Diagrams

If you set an instrument on the chord sheet, this area shows a fingering diagram for every unique chord used in the song. Diagrams update automatically when you transpose — the correct voicings for the new key appear without any extra steps. If you have not created diagrams for some chords yet, you can add them directly from this sidebar.

On mobile, chord diagrams are not shown in the sidebar. Instead, tap any chord name in the sheet to open a popup showing the diagram for that chord.

The Audio Player

If you attached an audio file, a sticky player appears pinned to the bottom of the screen. It stays visible while you scroll through the chord sheet. The player controls are:

• Play / Pause button — starts or stops playback.
• Waveform / progress bar — shows the audio waveform. Click anywhere on it to jump to that point in the track.
• Current time and total duration — displayed beside the waveform.
• Speed control — lets you slow down or speed up playback. Useful for practising difficult passages at a reduced tempo.

Beat Counts

Beat Counts let you mark how many beats each chord is held for. The number appears as a small badge directly above the chord — so students can see the timing at a glance without having to work it out by ear. For example, a chord marked ×4 lasts four beats; ×2 lasts two beats.

What Is a Beat Count?

A beat is the basic unit of time in music. When you play a chord, you hold it for a number of beats before moving to the next one. In a song in 4/4 time, a single bar might have one chord lasting all 4 beats, two chords at 2 beats each, or four chords at 1 beat each. Beat counts make this explicit so the student does not have to guess.

You can assign any whole number from 1 to 32 to any chord.

Step 1 — Open the Editor

Beat counts are set while editing a chord sheet, not on the viewer page. Open the chord sheet and click the Edit button (pencil icon) in the top-right. This takes you back to the form with the Source Text and the live preview.

Step 2 — Click a Chord in the Live Preview

Scroll down past the Source Text field to the live preview. At the top of the preview area you will see a small hint in gray text: “Click a chord to set beat count”. Every chord name in the preview is clickable.

Click directly on any chord name — for example Am, G, or C. A small popover appears just above the chord you clicked.

Step 3 — Enter the Beat Count in the Popover

The popover contains two elements:

• A text input field (placeholder text: beats) where you type the number.
• A × button on the right side, which removes the beat count for that chord entirely.

Click inside the input and type a number from 1 to 32. To save and close the popover, do any of the following:

• Press Enter — saves and closes immediately.
• Press Tab — saves and moves focus away.
• Click anywhere outside the popover — saves and closes.

To cancel without saving anything, press Escape.

Numbers outside 1–32, letters, or decimals are silently ignored when you close the popover — no error message appears, the value is just not saved.

Step 4 — The Badge Appears Instantly

After saving, a small ×N badge appears above the chord in the preview — for example ×4 for four beats. The badge is visible right away; you do not need to save the chord sheet first to see it.

Chords without a beat count show no badge, but the spacing above them is preserved so the layout stays consistent.

You can annotate as many or as few chords as you like. There is no requirement to annotate every single chord.

Step 5 — Save the Chord Sheet

When you are done annotating, scroll to the bottom of the form and click Save. Beat count annotations are saved together with the chord sheet — there is no separate save step. They will be there the next time you open or edit the sheet.

Editing or Removing Beat Counts

To change a beat count, click Edit on the chord sheet, then click the chord in the preview. The popover opens with the current value already in the input field. Type a new number and press Enter to replace it, or click the × button to clear it entirely.

What Happens When You Edit the Source Text

Beat counts are stored separately from the source text, so most edits are safe:

• Changing a chord name (e.g., Am → A) without changing how many chords are on the line: beat counts stay.
• Changing lyrics or artist/title: beat counts stay.
• Adding or removing chords on a line (changing the chord count): beat counts for that section are cleared automatically, because the old positions no longer map correctly to the new layout. You will need to re-enter them after restructuring.

Strumming Patterns

Strumming patterns are visual rhythm guides you can attach to a chord sheet. Each pattern is a grid of stroke symbols — down-strokes, up-strokes, muted hits, and rests — laid out beat by beat. Students see them above the chord sheet content so they can follow the rhythm at a glance.

Adding a Strumming Pattern

Open the chord sheet and click Edit. Below the Source Text and Audio File sections, you will find a Strumming Patterns area. Click the Add Pattern button to create a new pattern. You can add up to 10 patterns per chord sheet.

Configuring the Pattern

Each pattern has three settings at the top:

• Name (optional) — a label like “Verse” or “Chorus”. It appears above the pattern grid so students know which section it belongs to.
• Time signature — choose from 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, 6/8, or 7/8. This sets how many beats appear in the grid.
• Subdivision — choose quarter notes (♩), eighth notes (♪♪), triplets (♪♪♪), or sixteenth notes (♬). Higher subdivisions give you more slots per beat for detailed rhythms.

When you change the time signature or subdivision, the grid resizes automatically. Existing strokes are kept where possible; extra slots are filled with down-strokes by default.

Setting the Strokes

The grid shows one slot for each subdivision of each beat. Click any slot to cycle through the four stroke types:

• ↓ Down-stroke (indigo) — strum downward.
• ↑ Up-stroke (green) — strum upward.
• × Muted hit (amber) — a percussive dead strum.
• – Rest (gray) — skip this slot (silence).

Beat dividers separate the groups visually so you can see where each beat starts.

Removing a Pattern

Each pattern has a trash icon in the top-right corner. Click it to remove that pattern immediately. The remaining patterns stay in the same order.

Where Patterns Appear

After saving, strumming patterns are displayed on the chord sheet viewer page and on any shared or embedded links. Students see the pattern grid with colour-coded strokes and beat numbers — no editing controls are shown to them.

Sharing Chord Sheets

You can share any chord sheet with anyone via a link — no Exerzisor account is required to view it. You can create multiple share links for the same chord sheet, each with different settings (for example, one with beat counts visible and one without, or one with a password and one open).

Step 1 — Open the Share Modal

Open the chord sheet and click the Share button in the top-right. A modal window opens. If you have created share links before, they are listed here. If not, the modal shows: “No share links yet. Create one to share this chord sheet publicly.”

Step 2 — Click “New Share Link”

At the bottom of the modal, click the indigo New Share Link button (with a + icon). A form expands inside the modal with the following fields:

Label (optional)

A name for this link, visible only to you. Use it to tell your share links apart, for example “Year 7 class”, “Website embed”, or “With beat counts”. If you leave this blank, the link is simply called Share Link.

Password Protection (optional)

A toggle switch. When you turn it on (blue), a password field appears. Enter at least 8 characters. Anyone who opens the link will be asked for this password before they can see the chord sheet. Leave the toggle off for an open link anyone can open.

Features

Three toggle switches that control what the person opening the link can see and do:

• Audio Player — when on (blue), the audio player is shown at the bottom. When off (gray), the audio player is completely hidden even if the chord sheet has audio attached.
• Speed Control — when on, the speed adjustment button appears inside the audio player. When off, the speed button is hidden and playback is always at 1×.
• Beat Counts — when on, beat count badges are visible and the student can toggle them. When off, beat counts are completely hidden regardless of whether they exist on the sheet.

All three are turned on by default. Turn off any feature you do not want that specific audience to have access to.

Step 3 — Click “Create”

Click the indigo Create button. Exerzisor generates the share link and it appears in the list. The Create button is disabled if you have password protection turned on but the password field has fewer than 8 characters.

Step 4 — Copy and Send the Link

Each share link in the list shows two copy buttons:

• Copy Link — copies the direct URL to your clipboard. Paste this into an email, message, or learning management system. When a student opens it, they see the chord sheet immediately (or after entering a password if you set one).
• Embed (only available on links without a password) — copies an <iframe> code snippet you can paste into any website or blog to embed the chord sheet as an interactive widget. The Embed button does not appear on password-protected links.

After clicking either button, it briefly turns green with a checkmark to confirm the copy worked.

Managing Existing Share Links

Each share link in the list has three action options on its bottom row:

• Edit (indigo, pencil icon) — opens the same form you used to create the link. Change the label, password settings, or any of the feature toggles, then click Save. Changes take effect immediately.
• Revoke / Reactivate (amber) — disables the link without deleting it. Anyone who tries to open a revoked link will see an error. Click Reactivate to turn it back on. Use this if you want to temporarily block access.
• Trash icon (red) — permanently deletes the share link after a confirmation prompt. This cannot be undone. The chord sheet itself is not affected.

A revoked link shows a red Revoked badge next to its name in the list so you can see its status at a glance.

What Students See

When a student opens your share link, they see a clean chord sheet viewer page. There is no navigation bar, no account menu — just the chord sheet, a controls bar, a right sidebar, and the audio player at the bottom (if enabled). Everything on the page is read-only; students cannot edit anything.

The Student Controls Bar

The controls bar works the same as the teacher view, with these elements:

• Transpose (− / + buttons and Reset) — students can transpose the key for themselves. This does not affect what the teacher or other students see.
• Font Size (S / M / L / XL) — students can increase or decrease text size.
• Metadata badges (Key, Capo, BPM, Tuning) — shown when present in the source text.
• Auto-scroll — shown when the chord sheet has audio sync points. When active, the page scrolls to follow the currently playing chord.
• ♩ Beats — shown when Beat Counts are enabled on the share link and at least one chord has a beat annotation. See below.
• Hide / Show sidebar — same as the teacher view.

The ♩ Beats Button

If you enabled Beat Counts on the share link and the chord sheet has at least one annotated chord, a ♩ Beats button appears in the student controls bar. This button lets students toggle the beat count badges on or off:

• Green (on): beat count badges are visible above the chords.
• Gray (off): beat count badges are hidden. The layout stays the same — no jumping or shifting — because the space above each chord is preserved either way.

Beat counts are shown by default when the student first opens the link. Their toggle preference is personal and temporary: it applies only to their current session and does not affect anyone else viewing the same link.

If Beat Counts was turned off on the share link, the ♩ Beats button does not appear at all and beat counts are never shown, even if the chord sheet has them.

The Sidebar (Student View)

The right sidebar works the same as in the teacher view:

• Sections — click any section name to jump to that part of the song.
• Chord Diagrams — shows fingering diagrams for every chord in the sheet (if an instrument was set and diagrams exist). These are read-only; students cannot add or edit diagrams.

On Mobile

On a phone or small tablet, the right sidebar is hidden by default to maximise reading space. Instead of a sidebar, students tap any chord name directly in the sheet to open a popup showing the chord diagram for that chord. The controls bar collapses to fit the smaller screen.

The Audio Player (Student View)

If you enabled the Audio Player on the share link, the same sticky player appears at the bottom. Students get the play/pause button, waveform scrubbing, and — if you enabled Speed Control — the speed adjustment button. If Speed Control was turned off on the share link, the speed button is simply not there.

These changes are being tested locally and will be available on Demo shortly. Once deployed, they move to the Changelog.

Cancelled

Practice Mode with Sheet Music & Audio

Students can open a dedicated practice view that displays sheet music (PDF) alongside a synchronized audio player — everything they need to practise in one screen.

• Side-by-side view: the PDF sheet music fills the screen while a sticky audio bar stays at the bottom for easy playback control.
• Playback speed: slow down or speed up the audio (0.5× to 2×) to match the student's level.
• Fullscreen mode: expand the practice view to remove all distractions.
• A "Practice" button appears automatically on any lesson section that contains both a PDF and an audio file.
• Works on desktop and tablets — touch controls are fully supported.
• Reference: PR #19 — branch available for future use.