Chord symbols

SongWriter’s chord symbols are intelligent with respect to key; if you decide to change the key, the chord symbols are automatically transposed. Similarly, if you copy chord symbols to a passage in another key, they’ll be transposed when you paste them. Even SongWriter’s guitar fretboard diagrams, which are created automatically, transpose according to the key.

To play-in chord symbols

Occasionally, you may encounter a dialog box telling you that SongWriter doesn’t recognize the chord you just played (or the chord it just analyzed). You can either choose an available suffix or re-enter the suffix.

• Click the Chord tool  . The Chord Menu appears.
• Choose Allow MIDI Input from the Chord Menu, and then click a note or rest in the score. The ear-shaped cursor appears, indicating that SongWriter is listening to your MIDI instrument.  

Play a chord, in any register, on your synthesizer; SongWriter places the chord symbol into the score, aligned with the baseline (controlled by the two triangles at the left side of the screen). If you don’t play the chord in root position, SongWriter writes it with an alternate bass note, as in “Am/E.”

Play a note higher/lower than an octave above/below middle C to move the cursor forward or backward full measures. Play middle C when an existing chord is highlighted to move the cursor up.

To type-in chord symbols

• Click the Chord tool  . The Chord Menu appears. 
• Click on the note on which you want the chord to appear. A cursor appears above the note, aligned with the chord positioning arrows.
• Type the chord that you want to appear in the score, such as “BbM7/C”. Type an underscore (shift-hyphen) instead of a slash if you want the alternate bass note (C in this example) placed under the root. You can also type | (shift-backslash) instead of a slash or an underscore; this will place the alternate bass note below and slightly to the right of the root.

• An alternate method of entering suffixes is to type a colon followed by the slot number of the suffix shown in the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box. Or, type a colon followed by zero. If you type a slot number, SongWriter displays the corresponding suffix from the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box. If you type a zero, the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box appears, where you can choose a suffix.

• Type uppercase letters unless you want the root and alternate bass note to use lowercase letters.

Tip: Use the Caps Lock key when you know you want only uppercase chords—to enter a flat symbol with Caps Lock engaged, press shift-B (for lowercase).

• Press enter to accept the change. Or, press spacebar, tab, or shift-right arrow to move to the next entry, or click the next note on which you want a chord to appear. To move to the previous entry, press shift-spacebar, shift-tab, or shift-left arrow.

If SongWriter doesn’t recognize the suffix, a dialog box appears in which you can choose an available suffix from the chord suffix library.

• If you want to enter or edit another alternate chord on the same note, press the up or down arrows.
• Continue entering the chords in this manner.

To edit chords

• Click the Chord tool  . The Chord Menu appears.
• Click on the note containing the chord you want to edit.
• If more than one chord is assigned to the same note, press the up and down arrows to select the chord you want to edit.
• Select the portion of the chord you want to change, and type the change.
• Press enter to accept the change. Or, press the spacebar, tab, or shift-right arrow to move to the next entry, or click the next note on which you want a chord to appear. To move to the previous entry, press shift-spacebar, shift- tab, or shift left-arrow.

If SongWriter doesn’t recognize the suffix, a dialog box appears in which you can choose an available suffix from the chord suffix library.

To move chord symbols

• Click the Chord tool  .
• Click the staff containing the chord symbols. Two small arrows appear at the left edge of the screen. These arrows control the baseline for the chord symbols—the line against which the bottoms of the chord symbols align. (Make sure Position Chords is selected in the Chord Menu.)
• Drag the positioning arrows up or down. Drag the left triangle up or down to move all the chords in the piece. Drag the right triangle, in Page View, to move the chords in this staff in this system only.
• Click and drag the symbol's handle to move chords (along with their fretboards) individually. Click and drag a fretboard handle to adjust its positioning relative to the chord symbol.

To prevent chord symbols from playing back

• From the Window Menu, choose Instrument List. The Instrument List appears.
• Click on the arrow next to the name of the staff that has chords attached. The list expands to display the components of the staff, including Chords.
• Click the square next to Chords in the P column. The chord symbols will no longer playback from this staff.

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