Change Chord Assignments

 

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How to get there

Click the Selection Tool  image\Selection_Tool.gif, and select a region of measures. From the Utilities menu, choose Change, then Chord Assignments.

What it does

This dialog box lets you change all chord symbols in a selected region in several ways. You can transpose them, turn their playback on or off, change their display to fraction-style, or move them by a precise amount.

Root refers to the root scale tone; if you turned this box off for a Cmaj7 chord, only the "maj7" would remain. The first Lowercase option determines whether the Root will appear as a lowercase or a capital letter.

Alternate Bass is the bass note of a chord in some inversion; if you turned this box off for a Cmaj7/G chord, only Cmaj7 would appear in the score. The second Lowercase determines whether the Alternate Bass will appear as a lowercase or capital letter.

After Root, Under Root and As Subtext. If this checkbox appears white, all chord symbols will appear in normal slash style. Click a second time to make an X appear and choose Under Root, meaning that alternate bass notes will appear directly beneath the rest of the chord symbol, fraction-style. Or, choose As Subtext to have the alternate bass notes appear below and slightly to the right. Click yet again to make the checkbox gray, so that the alternate-bass styles remain unchanged.

Because some chords may be set to play back and others may not (within a certain region), these checkboxes initially appear gray—meaning that Finale won’t change this element at all. To turn an item off (so it won’t play back), click the checkbox so it turns white. To turn an item on, click again, so that an X appears in it. Click yet again to make the checkbox gray again.

Root is the root scale tone (the C in a Cmaj7/G chord); Suffix represents the notes of the chord suffix only; Fretboard plays the entire chord as displayed in the fretboard diagram; and Alternate Bass is the bass note of a chord in some inversion (the G in a Cmaj7/G chord). You can turn playback of each of these elements on or off individually for all chords in the selected region.

If you choose Add to Default Position, Finale moves each symbol into its default position (dictated by its baseline and point of note attachment)—plus any additional adjustment you specify in the H: and V: text boxes (see below).

If you instead choose Add to Current Position from the popup list, Finale ignores the chord symbols’ default positions. Instead, Finale simply slides each symbol—from its current position, even if you’ve dragged it by hand—a distance you specify in the H: and V: text boxes (see below).

Note: To display fretboards on all chords in the piece, Show Fretboards must be selected in the Chord Menu.

 

See Also:

Chord symbols

Utilities Menu

Chord Tool

 

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