Dear Finale List,
Using the JazzChord font, I have been trying to notate a Dominant 13th (b9) chord as a polychord in Finale like this:
A ---- C7
In the process, I found that there is no way to attach a chord suffix to an alternate bass note in a chord symbol.
If I was willing to settle for a horizontal alignment (A/C7), I came up with the following work-arounds:
1) Enter it as a text block or text expression. Unfortunately, I have to then manually align it with other chords, I have to create a separate expression for each root/chord, and if I copy it to a region with a different key, the chord symbols won't transpose.
2) Enter just the "7" as a text expression or text block. These, too, have to be extensively manually tweaked to look right.
3) The most practical work-around (for horizontal alignment): Put the "7" suffix after the upper triad and set its position so it will align with what Finale thinks is the alternate bass note, and enter the upper triad symbol in a separate layer from the "alternate bass" chord. To facilitate Type Into Score entry, I also preceded it with an empty character from the JazzChord font so the position will be different from the "7" in a normal dominant 7th chord. I had to create two separate suffixes: one that avoids an accidental and one that doesn't.
However, when I tried to put a C *UNDER* the A chord (by selecting "Under Root" from the Alternate Bass popup in the Chord Definition db or typing A_C), the vertical spacing between the chord and alternate bass was way too extreme, and the length, thickness and depth of the horizontal separator was completely wrong (I want to make the horizontal line thicker, wider and lower).
Does anyone know where these things can be edited?
Thanks in advance, Brian Williams
I think you may be out of luck on the horizontal line, unless you want to enter a bunch of them as shape expressions and manually position them, as I think the horizontal line is just an underscore character in some hardwired font.
You can make the vertical positioning a bit less spread by changing the default chord font to JazzText from JazzCord. JazzCord has a WHOLE bunch of extra space attached to it, whereas JazzText only has a bit too much.
I commiserate with you on how miserable this whole setup is for polychords.
Alternately, if you are doing this regularly for the whole piece, you can enter TWO different chords on a note, with one positioned above the other, easily adjusted for the whole piece using baselines, then add in the underscore using the lyric tool, again adjusting the baseline, and making it as thick as you like by adjusting the font and size (I don't think you have an underscore in Jazz Text). If the upper structure never needs a suffix, then it may be better just to add the entire series of upper structures as lyrics with underscores in JazzText 24 (or whatever your size may be) and drag the baseline above the lower chord.
I found the underscore again too skinny, but adding a different verse, and making the underscore character alone in a different font worked out OK, as well as using one of the custom enclosures, which on the Mac are found under
opt D, opt sh 8 opt E, then O
I'm sorry I don't know the Alt-number for PC, but you can look them up in teh Help menu under Jazz Character sets.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
