What’s the current best way to do harmonic analysis, like this?
The roman numeral was easy enough (lyric), but the inversion numbers were harder. I used Shift-X and moved them around, but when I tried to do a V(6/5), it kept automatically changing the position of the numbers.
I think, in the absence of a proper feature to do this, you can use Shift+X text, but you’ll need to switch off the ‘Avoid collisions’ property to be able to position the numbers close to each other without them springing out of the way.
Thanks Daniel. In this case, the offending characters in question did have the “avoid collision” property turned off. That’s what was mystifying to me.
Please attach a simple example so I can take a look and figure out what might be up.
Hi Daniel,
I’m wondering where you are with this area of additional elements / overlaid information. Brackets, curves, arrows etc. most with accompanying text and, quite often, lined up hierarchically (e.g. Phrases / Motifs). I would be interested in hearing your thoughts - do you and the team have an idea of how and when this area could be tackled and does it present particular challenges?
Daniel, simple example is attached.
Manual harmonic analysis.dorico.zip (262 KB)
All I did was add roman numeral with lyric popover, then a 6 and a 5 using text popover. Both the 6 and the 5 have collision avoidance turned off, but they won’t cooperate. Thanks for taking a look.
Ah, it’s the fact you’re using lyrics: you can’t disable collision avoidance between lyrics and other items. If you use Shift+X text for each of the items, and set all three of them to have ‘Avoid collisions’ switched off, you’ll be better off.
I actually wonder whether putting these in as playing techniques designed via Engrave > Playing Techniques might not be better than assembling text items. You could define e.g. V(65) as the popover text to enter into the Shift+P popover, and that would then produce the appropriate composite with the various items aligned together in the editor.
Obviously in the fullness of time we plan a proper feature to do this kind of harmonic analysis, but it might be a reasonable stop-gap until then.
That’s fine; it’s not a frequent need for me, so I can use a workaround. Thanks.
I love the idea of a custom playing technique. Can playing techniques be exported as libraries?
Not at the moment, but you can do ‘Save as Default’, which will make them available in all new projects you start thereafter.
If you were a Finale user (as I was) you may have the Finale Numerics font which has a lot of the symbols set up for you. Here is an example in Dorico with the lyrics using the Numerics font attached to the bass line:
You use the regular Roman numerals (like vii) and add one or more zero-space characters for the numbers or symbols and control which stack you are in by using the “`” symbol to move to the next column. You use shift to access the top symbols (superscript) and option to access the bottom symbols.
For example: To make a ii half-diminished 65 chord you would type “ii” shift-j (for the half-diminished symbol, a ` to move to the next column, a shift-6 to get the superscript 6, and a 5 to get the small 5 under the previous superscript. For more information take a look at (and I know this message might burst into flames when I post a link to the Finale manual): Finale Numerics font
I wonder if other cross-platform software has a similar font strategy that people could use… 
Edit: Here is a larger screenshot:
Richard, that actually doesn’t look too bad! And yes, I do still have Finale Numerics lurking around somewhere.
I remember using Finale numerics back in the day, but I hadn’t thought the functionality would port over. Clearly is does. I’ll give it a shot. Thanks!!
Side note: if you use arrow to advance lyrics instead of spacebar, it won’t add an extender line…
Thanks for the tip. It’s good to have that option without the lyrics extension. I bet you could use verse 2 for vertical pivot chords too!
R
Hi, just checking if Steinberg has implemented a solution for harmonic analysis? The Shift-X is a good workaround but for composers being able to perform analysis on scores is a foundation of practice (at least for me and for students).
The last reply here was in 2018, do we have anything now in 2021?
Hi TangoTango.
The very Original Poster, Dan Kreider, has created a special font, MusAnalysis, that fills all his (and our) needs in that field! It’s a donation ware, check it out at Notation Central!
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