reference.book Page 108 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
2. Notations
2.10 Chord symbols Chord symbols are objects that describe the harmony at that point in the music, and are commonly found in jazz, commercial and pop music compositions. Although many different chord symbol conventions are in use, depending mainly on the style of music, the most common convention uses the note name as the basis of the chord symbol.
C&7(b9) 3fr
In Sibelius, a chord symbol consists of two parts, each of which may be displayed independently of the other if you like: chord text, and a chord diagram. Chord diagrams are sometimes known as chord boxes, fretboard grids, guitar frames and so on, and show graphically which fingers need to be on which fret on each string.
Regardless of whether you want either or both the chord text and the chord diagram to appear, any chord symbol can be input in one of two ways: by typing it into the score, or by playing it on a MIDI keyboard (or MIDI guitar).
Overview of creating chord symbols Select the note or rest on the staff above which you want to add chord symbols, and choose Create Chord Symbol (shortcut Ctrl+K or K, for “kord”). A flashing cursor appears above the staff. Now either: type the desired chord symbol, e.g. “Cmaj7” – see Creating chord symbols by typing
below; or play the chord on your MIDI keyboard in any voicing – see Creating chord symbols by playing below. Hit Space to advance the cursor to the next note or beat position (if you input a chord symbol via your MIDI keyboard, the cursor advances automatically); hit Tab to advance the cursor to the start of the next bar. If you make a mistake, hit Backspace to edit the previous chord symbol, or type Shift-Tab to jump back to the beginning of the previous bar.
Overview of editing chord symbols You can edit chord symbols both globally and on an individual basis. Global edits include things like choosing how you want all chords with major 7ths in to appear, or whether you want guitar chord diagrams to appear on all staves or only on guitar notation staves, and so on. These settings are changed on the Chord Symbols page of House Style Engraving Rules, and in House Style Edit Chord Symbols, and are discussed in detail in 8.13 Edit Chord Symbols. Individual edits affect only the selected chord symbol: To edit an existing chord symbol, select it and hit Return (on the main keyboard) or double-
click it. To enharmonically respell a chord symbol entered from the MIDI keyboard, e.g. a chord symbol based on F# that should be based on Gb, select the chord symbol, and choose Edit Chord Symbol Respell Chord Symbol, which is also available in the context menu when you rightclick (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) with a chord symbol selected. 108