I’ve been facing a few problems with chord symbols in Dorico 3.5.
Firstly, I would love to be able to put a “%” sign to tell that the last chord is to be repeated, but I couldn’t find how to do it except in a little text frame.
I would like to write a half-diminished chord with a natural ninth, for example Cø7add9 or Cø(9), etc… But when I try, Dorico treats the flat five as an alteration and gives me Cm7(b5 9), which indicates a different chord, and associated chord scale.
To avoid any of these problems, it would be perfect if we could create our own chord symbols and the ways we want to write them with the computer keyboard.
I hope that was clear enough, thank you for your answers !
There’s no automatic “bar repeat” function for repeated chord symbols. The easiest way would be to use the free font MusGlyphs, which includes that bar repeat glyph (accessed by typing %). You could just input it as staff text… NOT a text frame! For staff text, select the note at that position, Shift-X, and input your text.
If you have Dorico Pro, you have a huge amount of control over the appearance of chord symbols. Engraving Options–Chord Symbols.
It depends if you want the symbol at a position or centered on the bar. Dan’s MusGlyphs font is the best if you want it at a position. If you want it centered in the bar, I use a custom line with 0 width. That way when attached to barlines it will always be centered on the bar, no matter what music might be underneath.
I usually write it this way, which Dorico has no problem with. If you want it with the half-diminished glyph just select that option in Engraving Options/Chords/Chord Quality/Half-Diminished.
Yes, the problem is that even if we choose the diminished glyph in the engraving options, it disappear when I add a natural 9, because Dorico doesn’t make the difference between the b5 (which is part of the chord) et the 9nth (the extension). He sees them as two extensions of a minor chord.
Anyway, thanks a lot !!
There is a disconnect between what you type in the popover vs what appears based on your settings. Don’t think of the popover text as what necessarily appears as the chord may change depending on Engraving Options. For example below I typed in Cm9-5 but got the following with the settings shown:
