Is there a way to instruct Dorico to avoid bar lines when inputting chord symbols on the lower staff of a grand staff? (See image for clarification.)
It could be this option, for global setting (in Engraving Options):
Or in Engrave Mode, for local tweaking:
This is the answer, but I would still love for it to be a global option too. I can’t imagine a situation where I would actually want the chord to collide with the barline.
Indeed.
Jesper
What if you don’t like the piano player…?
Thanks much!
Unfortunately, this shifts all chord symbols to the right, which I don’t want. I only want to move those chords that overlap with a barline. Who wants chords to clash with barlines anyway? It should be something that Dorico handles naturally, in my opinion.
I agree. Chords should be moved away from the barline automatically.
This, of course, requires manual action on the part of the user, which I believe Dorico should handle automatically. But thanks a lot for the tip!
Who wants chord symbols between staves of a grand staff instrument?!! (crazy IMO)
FTFY
I confess, this way of notating chord symbols is outside my experience (as a jazz pianist). Anyone know of this being done widely?
Whether chords are between or above can be very context-dependent and I use both depending on the situation. Any time you have chord symbols in any jazz band score in an instrument other than a section leader, you’re going to have collisions with barlines too, like Tenor Sax., Trumpet 2, Trombone 3, etc. It would be nice if Dorico could handle these collisions automatically.
EDIT: typos
I actually use this a lot as it allows the reader to read horizontally rather than drawing their eye up and away from the music. Of course, some situations are just too busy and they have to go above like a typical lead sheet. Virtually all of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s publications put the chord symbols between the staves of the Piano parts though. Alfred used to have perusal scores of all their Ellington transcriptions, but it looks like they got rid of that feature. Anyway, if you check out any of the Essentially Ellington scores, I bet the chord symbol placement for grand staff instruments will all look like this:
Here’s an arrangement I just finished this morning for a rehearsal I had this afternoon. I didn’t bother fixing this as I didn’t care about the score, but if I did, I would have needed to fix this collision in the Tenor part:
To me the whole world of jazz notation (especially chord symbols) is an incomprehensible car crash (so I’ll shut up).
… and I just edited that typo out, dang!
It’s ultimately a matter of taste and how the music is notated. Rayn Cohan, an amazing American jazz arranger and pianist for whom I have done copy work, insists that the chords should be written on the lower staff for more complex piano parts. He is an excellent sight-reader and believes this approach helps him with that.
I use this method myself; otherwise, I wouldn’t have posted about it. I write a lot for various jazz groups.
what are you doing? I WANT THE CHORDS TO BE MOVED!
Unless you are using simple triadic chords (which I don’t think you are) chords should really be left-aligned to show the beat placement. You can’t really move them horizontally without affecting the interpretation of the beat placement, unless you are requesting an option to add additional space rather than actually moving them from their assigned position. Simply erasing the barline is a clean solution. The beat placement remains clear and there is no collision. I never want the chords to be moved horizontally if at all avoidable (and sometimes it’s not). I also never want a collision with the barline, whether in a grand staff or a score. An automatic Erase Barline feature would solve these issues and be fewer clicks. The example I posted a few posts up could easily (from a user standpoint, not a programer’s) be set to automatically avoid the collision in the Tenor part as that’s what the vast majority of users will want in this situation. (Center-aligned users aren’t using chords that are this complex.)