I’ve worked out how to hide chord symbols for different instruments (Setup, right click on the instrument where you don’t want chord symbols showing) so that they only appear above the first instrument. However, if that first instrument is hidden for a few bars, how can I then show the chord symbols without having them shown on multiple staves when the first instrument appears?
The layout is very common - Voice / Piano. The voice appears in bar 5 after a 4 bar Piano intro.
Glad it’s not just me!
Currently you have to do this manually, as follows:
Show chord symbols in BOTH instruments.
In Write mode select empty vocal bars. Go Edit/Filter/Chord Symbols. From the “Chord Symbols” section in the bottom pane flick the switch and then tick the box for “Hidden”.
Then select all the remaining piano bars, filter chord symbols, flick and tick as above.
According to Daniel a “Show chord symbols on top line” feature has already been implemented in the next minor release; hopefully out within a few weeks.
P.S. I’ve assigned Cmd-Shift-Alt-K to “Filter Chord Symbols”, just as I did years ago in Sibelius. I suppose Cmd-Shift-Alt-Q would be more appropriate to Dorico…
Thanks for this - much appreciated!
Just thinking about it, this is also possible in Engrave Mode - that feels (to me) like the obvious place to do it - but you can only select one chord symbol at a time so it’s considerably slower.
Is it possible to have chords showing on different instruments in different flows? For example, I might have one flow with just piano (with chords printed above), and a second flow with a lead instrument or vocal line. I want the chords to appear above the lead line but not the piano (in the lead/piano part only). I haven’t figured out how to do that without manually hiding the chords in the piano part…
The short answer is “not yet”. You’re not doing it wrong, it’s just the way that things are set up for now - the only way is to set chord symbols to show in both piano AND lead instrument (or vocal line), and then hide the ones you don’t want.
Here is Dan’s email from the 5th (verbatim):
"Hi Leo,
Just to say that we’ve also today implemented the option to allow chord symbols to be drawn only above the top staff, instead of following the settings for individual players defined in Setup mode. The new option will be on the Staves and Systems page of Layout Options and will be in the forthcoming minor update, which is hopefully only a few weeks away.
D"
Great news!
That IS great news indeed! And a simple way to accomplish what I’m trying to do. Thanks!
Is there a way to toggle all chord symbols to show on and off? I started a chart with chord symbols on the rhythm section only, and now need it for all instruments in the next flow…
I’m not sure what the issue is, matanr: do you have completely different instruments in your next flow? Or do you want chord symbols to appear for one instrument in one flow but not in the next? You can always select the staff that shows the chord symbols that you want to hide in that flow, then switch on the ‘Hide chord symbol’ property in the Properties panel.
Hi Daniel,
Just for clarity, can you give a detailed instruction for hiding chord symbols in a flow? When you say “select the staff” do you mean "Go to the Setup tab, right-click on the player in question, and select the preferred options under “Chord Symbols”?
If not, how do I access the “Hide chord symbol” property?
My problem is actually that even though chord symbols are present for my player in 2 consecutive flows, the chords only play in the 1st flow, and don’t even appear in the Play panel for the 2nd flow. I can’t figure out why there is a difference between the 2 flows.
Sorry if this is obvious; I hesitated to write, but I haven’t found an answer in the forum, or by Googling, reading the blog/online manual, release notes, etc.
Thanks, I’m loving 1.2.
When I wrote that reply back in early August, Dorico 1.1 was the current version, in which you could select chord symbols simply by clicking in a blank part of the bar in which they appear, but since Dorico 1.1.10 at the end of August that has no longer been possible, which makes the instruction misleading. Sorry about that – times change, and so too does Dorico!
You need a selection of only chord symbols in order to see and set/change the ‘Hide’ property in the Chord Symbols group of the Properties panel: if you have any other items of any other type in the selection, you’ll see only the Common group in the Properties panel. There’s no good way of making a selection of chord symbols in just a passage of music using the keyboard alone at the moment, but you should be able to marquee select them reasonably easily.
However, the bigger question is why your chord symbols aren’t playing back in the second flow. Could you zip up and attach your project here, or failing that email it to me? If you email it to me, please be sure to include a link to this thread so I am reminded what I’m supposed to be looking at.
Thanks Daniel, I just emailed you a zipped Dorico file with the issue I’m experiencing.
Happy Holidays
Just to follow up on this, Scott: I had to ask Paul about this, and he discovered that this was caused by a bug which we have now fixed, so this problem will be resolved in the next update, when it comes.
Thanks Daniel! In the mean time can you suggest a workaround to get those chords to show up in Play mode?
Unfortunately not: I believe you would have to re-order the flows so that the flow whose chord symbols you want to see is the first flow, or otherwise export the subsequent flows to their own projects so that they are the first flow in their own project.
That will work!