It’s because the “7” chord component (that is used anytime a “7” is needed in a chord) has been altered…
This is how yours is set:
This is the Factory:
Go to Library > Chord Symbols (the Project Default Chord Symbol Appearances dialog) > Reset to Factory.
This should fix it but you will also lose the other chords in the “Project Default Appearances” list. I’m not sure what you’ve changed about them and if this is important or not.
Another way to fix is to go to the same Project Default Chord Symbol Appearances dialog but this time:
Select a chord that contains a “7” from the list on the left
Click the “7” in the Editor (so that it is highlighted red)
Click on the pencil icon (yellow arrow). This will take you to the Edit Chord Symbol Component dialog.
Ah ok. I thought the whole point of the chord symbols appearances editor was to be able to adjust individual chord symbols. I had only adjusted it for major seventh chords; I don’t quite understand why it applies that offset to all the other seventh chords…
The reason I did that in the first place is because I want my major seventh chords to say lower case ma and superscript 7****, and there’s no way to do that with the regular chord symbol enghraving options…
I can get pretty much everything else to look like I want with the engraving options, except for ma7, ma9 etc
There is an option to use ma for major triads - maybe that will then apply to ma7 chords as well. The problem is I want major triads to just have the letter name, without a suffix…
I tried resetting the chord symbols engraving option to factory settings, and deleted all the custum chord symbols I had created, but when I then choose superscript for the number 7, it still doesn’t do it for ma7 chords…
I tried again with a Dorico default template project, and reset chord symbols, and now the 7s are superscript even though baseline is selected in vertical position, but 9 and 11 is actually baseline. I am very confused.
The “7” component is still non-default. This change must be saved in your user library. If you want to do Help > Create Diagnostic Report and attach the resulting zip file here, I can try and surgically remove it from your user library.
And maybe you could help me with this: I got myself into this whole mess in the first place because I wanted to achieve the following (for all my projects):
I’d like major triads to be just the letter name.
I’d like the 7, or 9, or 11, or 13 in seventh and extended chords to be superscript.
I’d like major seventh chords to have the suffix ‘ma’. The ‘Appearance of major seventh’ setting in engraving options only offers either ‘MA’, or ‘maj’. That’s why I started messing around with Project Default Appearance - I was trying to creat a custom chord symbol for major seventh chords.
@Christian_Klikovits, I definitely recognize that we each have certain ideas about how we want our music to look in print/onscreen, and while I do believe we reserve the freedom to make choices, it’s also wise to consider legibility and information-processing.
@FredGUnn, one of our forum’s highly experienced and thoughtful jazz engravers, had the following very interesting observations about ma vs. maj and mi vs. min (and in lower and upper case) as part of a thread from a few months back:
Worth a read at least! (And, heck — he, @benwiggy, and others here might even convince me yet to dump my use of Petaluma font for music in my jazz charts! Cherished habits can die hard…)
Interesting read, thanks, Judd! The reason I don’t like maj and min is that on harmonically dense charts, space matters, and if I can express sth with 2 letters instead of 3, it helps keep things lean. But yes, the argument for distinguishing m for minor and maj for major based on the different graphical size is also convincing.
I always felt that just m for minor was a bad idea because in the old handwritten days people would use M for major and m for minor and with sloppy handwriting you didn’t know what the hell they were trying to write…
I completely agree - especially when sight-reading.
I also agree. 100%. In fact, I’ve recently changed my defaults to use the “triangle” for major 7 and “triangle9” for major 9. This was in consultation with 4-5 professional players from Sydney who have a variety of pianistic roles.
There’s an Australian film composer - Tim Davies - who comes to mind. He is generally of the mind that writers shouldn’t over-notate etc. I feel like he would say something like: "Nowadays, an “m” is nearly universally acknowledged to mean minor and a “triangle” or “maj” to mean major. And, if you put the two chords in front of 100 people, 99 of them will know what to play.”
I’ve fixed the offset and scale factor for the “7” component in your user library. Unzip this attachment, so you get the userlibrary.xml file, and then drag it into /Users/your-username/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Dorico 5 to replace the existing file in there.
To achieve your desired results, what I would suggest is starting from the factory defaults, then setting Vertical position of interval to Superscript, which takes care of 7/9/11/13 chords. For major 7 chords, you will need to make a tweak in Library > Chord Symbols, but for starters, set Appearance of major seventh to Triangle, then set Triangle appearance to Omit 7. Now your major 7 chords will appear with just the triangle.
You can then replace the triangle component with one that says “ma”, as follows:
Choose Library > Chord Symbols.
Enter e.g. Cmaj7 into the box in the top left.
Select the triangle component in the preview on the right. This will also select it in the row of components below the preview.
Click the pencil icon to edit the triangle component.
In the dialog that appears, delete the existing triangle component, then on the Text tab choose Chord Symbol Font from the Font menu, enter ma into the box below, and click Add Text.
Confirm this dialog, and then click Apply and Close.
Now you have overridden the triangle to appear as “ma” everywhere it would otherwise appear.
