By convention, in a traditional chords sheets, the chords are located on an empty line above the lyrics. And the position of a chord above the text indicates the precise moment of the chord change.

Let’s take an example:

       Em                  D
On the first part of the journey
      Em                   D
I was looking at all the life
           Em                     D
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
          Em                   D
There was sand and hills and rings
    Em                      D
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
        Em              D
And the sky with no clouds
    Em                   D
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
        Em                 D
But the air was full of sound

Now, take a look at the corresponding one-pager section:

As you can see, the connection is pretty simple:

Type of underline Meaning
Standard a.k.a. solid underline Chord change for the first measure of the line
Dotted underline Chord change for the second measure of the line

The position of the underline matters quite a lot

An underline could be positioned in three different ways:

Position of the underline Meaning
An entire syllable is underlined The chord change is precisely aligned with the beginning of that syllable
The underline is at the intersection between two syllables The chord change happens after the beginning of the first syllable and but also before the beginning of the second syllable
Only the end of the last syllable of the line is underlined The chord change happens after the beginning of that last syllable but also before that syllable is over

In our previous example:

  1. These chord change is aligned with these syllables: first, loo, plants, sand, first, fly, sky, heat, ground, air
  2. The chord change happens in between those two syllables: jour and ney, rocks and and
  3. The chord change happens after these syllables start and before they end: life, rings, clouds, sound