Chord Symbols issue for individual players vs for whole score (local vs global)

I’m having trouble with consistency in chord symbols being applied either to individual players or the score as a whole (local chords vs global chords?).

I have realised that while using the chord symbol popover I can toggle between whether it is applied locally or globally using the alt key, however the default application without the alt key seems inconsistent and I only just realised this option. The result is that some of my chord symbols turn out to have been applied locally, some globally, so I have missing chord symbols on some parts.

Is there a way to control or predict the default application of chord symbols? Currently there’s no context where I wouldn’t want the symbols global, personally.
Secondly, is there a way to turn all chord symbols to global, or do I have to go through each individually and re-input them globally?
Let me know if I’m missing a piece of the puzzle entirely.

I should add, I couldn’t find any information about the local/global toggle in any of the steinberg.help pages for chord symbols I read (“Chord symbols popover”, “Inputting chord symbols”, “Input methods for chord symbols”). I could have missed it but if it’s missing it would be useful to have it included on at least one of those pages!

Thanks

(Using Dorico 3.5 on Windows 10)

Hi Samuel, here’s the page for inputting chord symbols in the 3.5 manual, were you definitely looking at this version of the manual? Step 3 shows how to switch and lock the popover into either global or local chord symbols.

The note in step 2 might also be relevant, as once you’ve input a local chord symbol somewhere on a staff, the popover will default to local each time you subsequently open it.

There’s no way to change chord symbols from local to global, but you can delete local chord symbols to “reset” the chords shown at those positions to the global chord symbol, if one exists.

(The visible Locally/Globally toggle you can see in the Properties panel relates to local properties specifically, you can read about that here.

Woops, I was not looking at the 3.5 manual, my mistake!

So, the only reason the chord popover would be local without my specifically choosing it, would be if I’d already entered local chords elsewhere earlier in the score? If so, I must have done this by accident somehow and created this issue later on.

Thanks for your help

I’ve tried following your steps but am still a bit confused how this works. It appears all my chord symbols (which I typically enter on the top stave which happens to be for vocals) are both local and global, the same symbol appearing whether I toggle or not. In an effort to reset everything to global I delete chord symbol 1’s local chord info and re-enter it as global (or else I cut and paste). However, when I now click back on the chord symbol it defaults to local entry, though I entered it as global and there were no previous local chord symbols. I am also unable to delete local chord data without also deleting global chord data.

My chords do seem to be appearing on parts correctly but I find this behaviour a bit strange and would like to understand it better so I don’t run into more issues in future. Thanks

Could you share your project? either here in the thread or in a direct message just to me. It’ll almost certainly be easier to help with a clear idea of what’s going on.

Two Hands workshop 2 sample.dorico (823.9 KB)
Take bar 21 in the attached file. I open shift+Q and the default is the local chord symbol. I can’t seem to alter this behaviour, however when I toggle to global I am satisfied that the same chord (Dm7/A) is applied globally. In this respect it appears no different to, say, the Am11 in bar 19. However, if I delete the Voice player then the Dm7/A disappears, whereas certain other chord symbols remain.

P.S.
Frustratingly (sort of?) in testing this behaviour for the sake of this comment, checking the chord symbols locally and globally in the bars in question, and deleting the player and undo-ing that action to test what chords remain and which do not, I have now ended up in a situation that all the chords in question now show as global by default, and remain when I delete the Voice player. I am still very confused, as at no point did I make any changes to the chord symbols in question via the popover!

Related to my P.S. on the above comment, thankfully I still had the earlier version with the issue described, that is the above “…sample.dorico”. The “fixed” version in the P.S. I now attach as “…sample 2.dorico”.

I wonder what the difference is between these two documents?
Two Hands workshop 2 sample 2.dorico (823.9 KB)

Edit: accidental double upload

The chord symbol on the voice staff in bar 21 is local (you can see this when you select it and check the read-out in the status bar, bottom-left of the main window). If you delete that chord symbol, subsequently reopening the chord symbols popover in bar 21 on the voice staff seems to result in it opening ready to input global chord symbols.

So unless you don’t find that to be the case when you try this out in your own copy of the project, it sounds like the issue was this:

I assume there is still no way to switch chords from local to global?
I’m also a bit puzzled that I cannot extend the filter to also select chords. Is this intended behaviour?

Correct, you have to open the popover for a chord symbol and then confirm it again, holding the appropriate modifier (e.g. hold Alt to switch from global to local).

I’m not sure what you mean about “extending the filter”: you can use e.g. Select More to grow the selection of chord symbols.