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What's our favourite procedure for achieving this in Sibelius?

I know it's a chord symbol moved down, over a run of slash-head notes with the first of each group hidden. But what's your procedure for getting it all lined up and pretty?

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symbolsandslashes.PNG.png (19K)

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Nigel Gray - 19 May 09:40PM

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Hi Lawrence,

I personally prefer to leave all the slashes visible (showing all the beats in the bar) and then placing the relevant chord symbol directly above the staff.

That way, should a rhythmic insert be required within the stave, it's possible to mix and match slash lines with notes. Also, I think the chord symbol is easier to read when it's not amalgamated with the lines in the stave.

--
Sibelius 7.1.3. Sibelius 6.2 Photoscore Ultimate 5.5.1 Acer laptop i7 Quad Core 2.2GHz - Windows 7, 8GB Ram.

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Adrian Drover - 19 May 09:58PM

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That's the way I used to write them by hand. To do it in sib, you will have to hide the slash on every chord change, then in DefaultPositions/TextStyles/ChordSymbol, edit vertical position to -3. Is it worth the time & effort?

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Tony Wakefield - 19 May 09:45PM

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I put the Chord sym. just above the stave and use 4 slashes to the bar, equally spaced. I would still use four slashes when a change of chord is requ in one bar. I have the first two slashes closer to each other, then two close in the 2nd half of the bar. But 3 slashes close together if there was a change on the last 1/4 beat. Etc etc.

I`ve just re-read what I wrote and I reckon it must be one of the most cryptic of all the coded messages that Bletchly park might have come up against - I`m quite proud :)

--
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/tonywakefield

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Laurence Payne - 19 May 10:15PM

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Thanks for the reasons why I SHOULDN'T want to do this :-)

Maybe when Dorico gets round to chord symbols...

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by James - 20 May 05:02AM (edited 20 May 05:03AM)

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How about this:

Create the first bar of four slashes by entering four quarter notes on B (the center line), changing their noteheads to 3 so they turn into slashes and hiding the first slash.

Then select the first bar and hit R many times.

Select bar 1 and use the shortcut to get chord symbol text. Type a chord symbol and then three spaces. Type another and three spaces. Continue. The chord symbols are now above the bars on beat one.

Select the first chord symbol, then Select More to get the rest. Then use the command down arrow and down arrow to move them into place.

Now, I'm sure you know all this, Laurence, so why are you asking?

--
Mac OS 10.9 Mavericks
Sibelius 6.2

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Adrian Drover - 20 May 07:25AM

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James, your solution is fine so long as there is only one chord change per measure and that it is always on the first beat. But there are not many songs that have such harmonic rhythm. Regarding the position of the chord symbol itself, if you do a lot of this, it is worth while editing the default position. Vertical -3 places it over the centre line.

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Adrian Drover - 20 May 07:58AM

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Laurence, there is a way to do this quickly, tho' not quite so pretty. Enter 4 quarter rests and hide them. Select measure and repeat for however long you need. Edit the default Ypos (-3) for chord text. Now just start typing using forward slash for beat repeats. Example attached. Of course, this only works if every beat is a quarter.

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chord text centred.PNG.png (27K)

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Laurence Payne - 20 May 10:09AM

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That's a useful idea, Adrian. Thanks.

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Richard Vitale - 20 May 09:59PM (edited 22 May 06:42AM)

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There are two super useful plugins for entering slash chords.

They are:
Make Pitches Constant (which I use for making "cross" notes also)
and
Fill Selection with Slash Notes
which both work by selecting empty bars

There is another called:
Slash Notes at Mid Line
which works by changing selected notes to slashes.

(Thank you Bob Zawalich!)

I've only seen Chords above Slash Notes as in the attachment.

--
Richie Vitale-Sib 8.3.0 User
iMac 2.8 Ghz Intel Core i5 / 8 GB RAM
richievitale@nyc.rr.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/richievitale

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Chords:Slash Notes.png (19K)

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Stephen Wrigley - 20 May 10:08PM

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But alas (in these days of fervent feature requests!) still no beat-length slashes, as opposed to note-length slashes...

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Richard Vitale - 20 May 10:21PM

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Stephen, can a see a screenshot of the beat-length slashes, as opposed to note-length slashes?

Not sure what the difference is :-)

--
Richie Vitale-Sib 8.3.0 User
iMac 2.8 Ghz Intel Core i5 / 8 GB RAM
richievitale@nyc.rr.com
http://www.youtube.com/user/richievitale

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Stephen Wrigley - 21 May 12:10AM (edited 21 May 12:16AM)

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Not near a computer at present, but an example would be using four slashes in a bar of 12/8. Or if, for example, you had a bar of 6/8, with a repeated three 8th note figure, you could use a slash to represent the repeated figure. But in Sib, the slash would have a dot, as it's referring to a specific note length (dotted crotchet) rather than repeating a beat of whatever length. I seem to recall that, in Gould, the examples of using a slash to repeat a beat are all in compound time, perhaps to demonstrate this point. I wonder how she did it! I have a workaround, but it nonetheless is a standard symbol. It would be even cooler if it could play back too!

(edited for poor phone input skills)

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Laurence Payne - 21 May 12:27AM

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You could use the same method as Adrian gave us for chords. See attachment.

Even better if there was a typeable character that matched notehead 3. The slash is a bit flimsy.

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Capture.PNG.png (54K)

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Tony Wakefield - 21 May 09:03AM

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I think your way Laurence could lead to Confusion between 6/8 & 2/4. To add a dot after the slashes seems to be stupid, but I rather think would be necessary.

--
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/tonywakefield

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Adrian Drover - 21 May 09:16AM

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Instead of forward slash type "V" (upper case). Select your line of chord symbols. Goto Home/Select/AdvanceFilter. Filter for Text/ChordSymbol containing "V". Select. Goto Text/Format/Font. Select Inkpen2 Special. You now have slash note-heads. They're a little on the small side, but acceptable. You can of course filter again for "V" and increase the Y scale in Text properties.

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chords.PNG.png (30K)

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Stephen Wrigley - 21 May 10:14AM

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@Tony: See Behind Bars p230. No dots. I note that the actual symbol is different to our notehead 3, as the ends are parallel with the staff lines rather than perpendicular to them. Do we have this symbol in Sib?

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Laurence Payne - 21 May 10:17AM

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You're on a roll, Adrian! They must be watering down the Guinness.

Note that this only works if you use (or have converted to) Legacy Chord Symbols. That's easy though, once you note that the "Convert Legacy Chord Symbols" plugin works both ways.

Re: Chord Symbols and slashes
Posted by Adrian Drover - 21 May 11:44AM

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Posted by Laurence Payne - 21 May 10:17
You're on a roll, Adrian!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I think you're right, Laurence. Another year older (Happy birthday to me). Dementia's on hold. Just completed my four & a half octave warm up (Bb0 thru' F5) for my lunch time big band gig. Not bad for 76 years, eh? I plan to have a Guinness or two this afternoon.