Hi everyone!
I’m not sure what some of the symbols mean at the bottom of the Dorico status bar. When I’m highlighting a chord I’ve inputted, the bottom of the page status bar spits back the notes and their register, as well as a parentheses that tells you what kind of chord it is. Is there a glossary page where all the possible chords are written long-hand instead of with the symbols?
For example, I have D and Ab in a chord, with a doubled D as octave. Status bar says D4, Ab4, D5 (D-3(+alterations))
What is this chord? I feel like Dminor3 is an incorrect assessment, unless I’m missing the actual definition of the - between D and 3. Does it mean diminished? Does it mean minor? I’m not sure.
Another chord that is quite confusing is I put in B4, G#4, B5 , C5 ,E5 and I got CaugMaj7, which also seems inaccurate to me. I think I am reading the status-bar chords wrong.
TL’DR: Is there a long-hand glossary I can refer to when reading these short-hand chord symbols of the bottom page status bar?
D-3(+alterations) likely means D without the 3 and with alterations (the lowered 5th).
The Cmaj7 with the augmented 5th is correct even if your chord is in its second inversion. Yes, you could also think of it as an E major chord with a minor 6th added (first inversion). I have no idea how Dorico decides between them. I only know that when Finale interprets such chords they usually choose the wrong interpretation. It really would require the program to be something of a mind-reader, which it is not.
It does not help that there are no universal standards for chord representation, as Dorico recognizes in its chord mode and offers several schools of chord notation as well as ways to modify them. I have no idea whether these affect what appears in the status bar, since I seldom use that feature.