Congrats to Daniel & the team! This seems to become a really excellent application!
At first I was a bit disappointed about the chord symbols thing though, as I need it soo bad. But then I realized it’s a golden opportunity to make a feature request, if I may be so bold.
(I’m sure this idea has been suggested before but I have often dreamed of it when I had to edit my chord progressions in Sib.)
How about letting the user specify a “Master Chord Player” (often the Lead Vocals in my case). Then it would simply be a matter of enabling other selected Players (i.e guitar, keys, bass…) with this little option = Chord symbols On/Off.
We write the chords in one place and they are automatically updated in all relevant staves. Oh happy days…
(Yes yes I know in some rare cases you may want to display different chords in different parts simultaneously but we all love an override button don’t we?)
We do have the concept of elements that are shared between different players. Dynamics, slurs, and lyrics can all be linked across multiple players so that edits to one of those things will automatically update the others. I think it makes sense for chord symbols to be handled in the same way, and so this will definitely be in our plans when we are able to start working on this very important functional area.
3 minutes for a great answer - Daniel, I love you!
Now, please take my money!
That will be a useful feature.
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Daniel, what is that concept called . . . to be able to link dynamics, slurs, and lyrics and/or chords to multiple players.
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Also, I saw in the Sibelius Blog, the letter “Q” is for chords. How will that work (is it for chord entry later or for some other purpose)?
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From the Sibelius Blog:
http://www.sibeliusblog.com/news/steinberg-announces-dorico-availability-in-q4-2016/
The letters A through G input notes
The numbers 1 through 9 specify note duration (e.g., 5 is an eighth note, 6 is a quarter note, 7 is a half note)
0 represents a natural; – is a flat; = is a sharp
The most common articulations are placed using the keys \ ‘
Tuplets are placed using the semi-colon
Grace notes use the slash key
Augmentation dots use the period
Rests use the comma
Q is for chords
I is for insert
If a feature like this is implemented, it would be useful to have a way to apply it to a region too. In a big band score for example, the sometimes the piano and bass parts may have chords/slashes and sometimes they may have something written out, and not necessarily at the same time. Also, during a saxophone or brass solo, they would need chord symbols too, but only for that limited duration, not the whole piece. Obviously I assume we can just copy and paste chord symbols, but just a couple of things to consider if Dorico does try something like a “Master Chord Player.”
Richie, I don’t think we’ve settled on the user-facing name for these shared dynamics, slurs, and lyrics (and eventually chord symbols). They’ll probably be called something like e.g. “shared dynamics” or “linked dynamics” in the end.
The way elements work is that each individual item, e.g. a single slur, or a single dynamic, or a single lyric, or (eventually) a single chord symbol can be shared or not shared as you like. So you could have a passage where e.g. the slurring is the same for the three trumpets, and in that case you would use shared slurs, but later on when the rhythm is independent, you can of course use independent slurs. This would work the same way for chord symbols, too.
As for chords in note input, you hit Q to engage “chord mode”. At this point, the caret no longer advances automatically when you type a new note name; instead, each note name you type is added above the previous note (there are modifiers to explicitly add that note below rather than above the selected note if you need to do that). When you’re finished with the chord, you hit Space to advance to the next position, assuming you want another chord there, or you hit Q to end “chord mode” and advance the caret automatically again. Of course, once we have step-time input from a MIDI keyboard working, you won’t need to engage chord mode at all, as you can just play the chord from your keyboard in one go.
This is another common requirement. A neat way to enter and align the content would be useful.
