I had created a lead sheet with rhythm hits above the staff, but it was very busy and awkward to read. I’m now trying to move the rhythm hits to a separate second staff. The uploaded project file is in transition, but the question only refers to the first two lines. The first line is the way I want it, with different chord changes on the first staff (for solos) and the second staff (for the head). In the first 3 bars of the 1st ending I want to replicate the chords shown on the first staff onto the second staff above the slash region. I tried selecting the first slash, opening the chord popover, and entering Gmaj7, but nothing appears on the staff. I looked at previous posts on chord regions, but I can’t figure out how to get all this working.
So Do It! v3.dorico (1.2 MB)
In the first system, the chord symbols which appear above the lower staff are actually attached to the upper staff. You can tell by selecting one of them and looking at the attachment line.
If you want chords actually attached to the lower staff, and you only want to show them in certain places, then you need to add a chord symbol region. For the first ending, though, you could also right-click on the player card in Setup mode and choose Chord Symbols > Show in Chord Symbol and Slash Regions and also Chord Symbols > Show in Full Score and Parts.
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That’s what I had tried after reading the chord symbol region description in the Dorico manual. I deleted the Bm11 shown in your snippet, created a chord region over beats 3 and 4 in the second staff, and entered the Bm11 chord on beat 3 in the second staff. The chord appears in the chord region, but also appears in the first staff:
I thought the chord symbol region would relegate the Bm11 to the second staff only. What am I missing here?
By default, chords apply globally to all instruments and will display in any staves which are configured to show them. In this case, your Soprano Sax player is configured to “Show for All Instruments”, not just in chord and slash regions. So the Bm11 is attached to the third beat and displays in both the top staff (because the staff is configured to show it) and the bottom staff (because it’s configured to show in chord regions).
If you want to input a local chord symbol that only displays on the second staff, then close the popover with Alt/Opt+Enter instead of just Enter.
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That did the trick; thank you very much!
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