I have an odd chord symbol issue with a big band file I imported from Finale via xml export. I know both apps do things differently but my imported file has chord symbols on every part essentially everywhere in the chart where, in the original, chord symbols only appear in the rhythm section solo sections of the individual parts. This is breaking all of the multimeasure rests and is essentially “clutter”.
When I delete a chord symbol from a part, it deletes from the entire score. Is there a reasonable workaround for this or will I need to create chord symbol regions, input the chord symbols so they populate the Dorico way, then delete the extraneous chord symbols from the rest of the score?? Screenshot attached!
Use the Player Boxes in Setup mode to unassign chord symbols from unwanted parts. Chords in Dorico are System Objects normally assigned only to “rhythm” instruments unless added to others. Most likely the problem you face was a result of the XML file.
To reiterate: All Instruments means all instruments of that particular player! If the player has only, let’s say alto saxophone, then instrument = player, and he will not have any chord symbols at all.
Must I do this for every player?? How tedious. Outside of the designated Chord Symbol Regions, there should be a way to select the chord symbols by staff, or group of staves, and only delete those. I might as well just delete all of them then re input them into the rhythm section.
Could this have been somehow avoided during the .xml export from Finale??
In Dorico, chord symbols are global by default – they apply at a rhythmic position and display in whichever instruments are configured to display them. You could delete them all and re-enter local chord symbols just in the rhythm section, but this is not the usual way to handle this – among other things, if you change a chord symbol, you’ll have to change it in multiple staves, whereas with global chord symbols you only change it once.
The issue here is that the Dorico .xml import didn’t import the chord symbols as “regions” and where originally specified in the Finale original and where I do have slash notation, it’s only a slash notation region and no overlapping chord symbol region. So now, I have unnecessary chord symbols everywhere – quite literally, everywhere.
If I delete globally, because there are no chord symbol regions, then create chord regions and re-input the chords, I can then create chord symbol regions where needed in the individual parts.
I used a global export in ‘24 when the Finale/Dorico “debacle” occurred and don’t even remotely recall what settings were used. I just looked at the Dorico import settings and neither chord symbols nor chord symbol regions are addressed.
I’m guessing a little, because I haven’t seen your file, but if you have all your players set to show chord symbols, then as soon as you input a chord symbol, it will show on all players.
From your initial description, it sounds like you want chords to show in rhythm instruments and in specific sections of the other instruments. The way to get this in Dorico is to adjust each player, as @Derrek suggests, and set the non-rhythm players to “Show in Chord Symbol and Slash Regions”. At that point, you should have chord symbols only on the rhythm players, and you can add chord symbol regions to the others where you want the chord symbols to show.
If you can upload your project – or even just a project file with the first page of it – someone can make a more specific suggestion.
Well, it would already help if we were able to select multiple players in order to perform bulk operations in setup mode!
We aren’t at the moment, right?
Absolutely!! I actually selected all of the wind players but when I right-clicked on one, only that player ended up being selected so that I could change the setting.
