If you are like me, you may have trouble remembering some of the keystrokes required to enter certain chord symbols into Finale, especially when you start getting into some of the alterations.
For either the Handwritten or Engraved Styles, many chord suffixes are simple to enter, because you can just type in the suffix as you would any string of text, and as you do so, Finale creates the proper chord suffix. For instance, in the Handwritten Style, you can type in “Cmaj7” or “C7(b9)” and you’ll get nice looking chord symbols with the proper vertical alignment both suffixes:
Works great, right? Well, yes and no. Finale needs these chord suffixes typed in *exactly* as they were entered, or you get an error message like this one:
Of course, you *can* add it to the library, but it won’t be correctly formatted, and besides, a proper looking version of the chord is probably already in the library! But where is it?
Fortunately, Finale has a “Find” feature for chord suffixes. To find a chord suffix that you can’t seem to remember the exact sequence for, you can type the root, a colon, a zero (e.g. C:0), then hit the spacebar:
Finale will display the Chord Suffix Selection dialog where you can choose the suffix you need from the list. Nice.
The search feature is handy, but of course, it’s a pretty slow way to enter chords. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simpler way to enter chords?
Actually, there is.
Fellow Finale user Paul Sametz recently contacted me with a very clear and simple method for entering chords which involves using printed reference files he created in connection with Finale’s Fast Entry Shortcut for chords, and specifically for NEW files created using Finale’s SETUP WIZARD:
His reference files are actually maps of Finale’s suffix editor. Here’s how they work:
Finale has a fast entry shortcut feature for chords. Each chord suffix has an associated location in the Chord Suffix Selection dialog, and each of these locations has a number (like an address) associated with it:
If you know a particular suffix’s number, you can enter a chord directly by typing the root, a colon (:), and the suffix number, then move to the next note—Finale adds the suffix automatically:
These chord shortcuts are a very powerful feature of Finale. If you work a lot with chords, you may have already discovered that the chord suffixes are in the same “slots” (locations) in the Engraver Style and Copyist templates, and have remained (relatively) consistent between various versions of Finale. However, this is not the case with the Handwritten Style.
First of all, as the Handwritten Style template has improved, more chords have been added. Also, in what appears to be an effort to group existing chord suffixes more intelligently, many of the chord suffixes have moved to different locations in the Chord Suffix Selector, so the chord suffix locations are different between, say, Finale 2010 and Finale 2012.
Paul’s chord suffix reference maps for the various templates used with Finale 2011 and 2010 are a good starting point to let you know where every chord suffix is located. If you are using Finale 2010 or 2011, you can simply print out the file that corresponds to the version of Finale and Style (Handwritten or Engraved) you are using, then use the reference numbers he has indicated under each chord suffix:
There is a chord suffix in every bar of the reference file, and every bar number corresponds to its matching suffix number. So, for instance, if you are using the Handwritten Style template in Finale 2010, and you refer to the chart and see that C7#9 is in bar 51 (equals suffix location, or slot 51), the chord entry is simply “C:51”.
Tip: If you are currently using Finale 2012, and don’t want to have to create a new shortcut legend from scratch, you can make use of Paul’s chord suffix maps by opening an earlier Finale template file in 2012, which will retain these chord suffix locations, allowing you to use the same shortcut map.
That’s it! That’s all there is to it.
~robert
UPDATE – Paul Sametz just forwarded me his reference maps for the Copyist Template which uses the popular (but legacy) JazzCord font for chord suffixes. The “Copyist” template is found in the General category of the Setup Wizard of Finale 2010 and 2011:
I’ve posted them in the downloads directory with the others. Also included in the directory for reference are the JazzCord character maps for Mac and PC. I think you will agree that printing out the reference map and typing “root, colon, number” is a very clear and simple way to enter chord suffixes.
Footnote: if you downloaded the 2011 Handwritten Style map, you may have noticed that the brackets are missing from some of the chord suffixes in Finale’s own Default file. The reason for this appears to be that the { and } bracket characters are missing from the Broadway Text font as well as the font character for the Triangle Delta symbol sometimes used for Maj7. Hopefully, an update to the Broadway Text Font is in the works to fix this issue. Contact MakeMusic customer support for more information.
re: chords, chord symbols, chord assignments, chord tool, key shortcuts, keyboard shortcuts, fretboards
I’d just like to add that my main interest is in the JazzCord font, which has an extensive number of special characters in it, that can make chord entry more reliable, quicker, and better looking than the chord set that Finale offers with its “Lead Sheet (Jazz Font)” template file.
I’m developing a template and a sample file with instruction for use, and I’ll let you know when it’s ready. Keep up the good work!
Paul
Thanks, Paul. Great contribution to the Finale community!
Robert
Thanks for posting the JazzCord materials, Robert. I am happy to share those discoveries – or at least my awareness of the procedures described in Finale Help (it’s pretty dense). I think we can conclude that there is no standard Chord Suffix map, so hopefully this system will lessen any frustration as you use the different templates offered in the Wizard.
You may also find when you study the printed list “Oh yeah, I should type ‘Cma7(b5)’ to get that chord because there’s no listing for ‘CMaj7b5’. Then you don’t have to waste time defining the visual look of it and the playback qualities of it (which you’d have to do if you created a new suffix in the Suffix Editor).
We have been using screen dumps (snapshots, printscreens) to view the chord suffix locations in the different templates, and *for a start*, using the (Symbol)(colon)(suffix number) method is pretty efficient. However, that still doesn’t help when you encounter a chord that is not in the list.
My professional preference is still the JazzCord font in the Copyist template, and I intend to use these suffixes and refine them, saving the new template as I perfect it. I use both Mac and PC versions of Finale, and need to know the keyboard shortcuts for them – the Alt-nnnn shortcuts on the PC and the Option-x or Option-Shift-x shortcuts on the Mac. In this case, the maps you have published here are a great start to increasing our efficiency.
Your readers are welcome to contact me directly to acquire my latest “extended” JazzCord templates.
Thanks, Robert. This is a great site!
Paul Sametz
ammo@silk.net
Good piece of writing, I will be checking back on a regular basis to look around for fresh news.
I love this. Your chord assignment / keyboard chart saved many Finale executives from my growing wrath.
Cheers,
jonathan
Can someone please send me a jazz changes road map
Which might include things such as #9b9
I’m on Finale 2012 and I use Windows 10
Manny many thanks
Martin
PrintMusic 2014 appears the same version of the Broadway Copyist Font as Finale 2010 (but not 2011), and so the following file maps perfectly for PM 2014:
Fin2010_chord_entry_Broadway_handwritten.pdf
Much thanks! I’ve been saved from painstakingly gluing together screenshots…