Chord/Manual Input

When this command is selected:

• Click a beat to display the chord entry cursor above the staff in order to type chords into the score. See To type chord symbols into the score.
• Double-click a beat that does not already include a chord symbol to display the Chord Definition dialog box, where you can define or edit chord symbols and fretboards prior to adding them to the score.

To enter chord symbols directly into your score, click the beat to which you want to attach a chord; a blinking cursor appears above the note. Type the chord’s root, suffix and alternate bass note, if any. When you’ve completed one chord, press the space bar to move quickly to the next note to continue entering chords; Finale displays the fully formatted chord after you enter it. (See the Keystroke table for a summary of the available keystrokes for entering chords and what they do.)

When you type chords directly on-screen (or type them in the Chord Definition dialog box), Finale follows some simple conventions to interpret what chord symbol was entered. A chord symbol is made up of one or more of the following parts: root, suffix, and alternate bass. Although you are not required to enter all parts of a chord symbol, Finale interprets the chord symbol’s root, suffix and alternate bass, in that order.  

First, enter the root with any alterations (sharps or flats). For example, type “Eb”, “F” or “G#” (SHIFT+3) to enter an E, F or G chord, respectively. Second, enter the suffix; Finale will look at the suffix characters you type, if any, and try to find a matching suffix in your document (all suffixes in your document appear in the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box). Last, Finale will check whether the chord should display an alternate note in the bass; enter a slash (/) or an underscore (SHIFT+hyphen) to display the alternate bass next to or below the chord symbol, then enter the alternate bass note with any alterations (sharps or flats).

For example, enter an FMaj7 chord simply by typing “Fmaj7”; press the spacebar to enter your chord and move to the next note. Entering chords with alternate bass notes is simple too; add a Cmin7/B chord simply by typing “Cmin7/Bb”. Finale knows that you want a flat when you type a lowercase “b”, and that you’d like an alternate bass note when you type the slash. (Finale also intelligently handles alterations in suffixes.) If you prefer to put the root “over” the alternate bass, type “Cmin7_Bb” instead—Finale intelligently determines the difference and displays the chord the way you want it.

Here are more tips:

• Display and Entry: Finale displays chords in any style you wish, using the Chord Style feature in the Chord menu. For chord entry, though, you need to type your chords using the Standard style convention. For more information on styles, see Chord Style.
• Fonts: Finale ignores display fonts when you type chords into your score—in fact, all the characters in your chords will appear in a regular text font as you type them. Finale does care about the keystroke, however; for example, even if your chord suffix mixes music characters and regular text characters, Finale will examine only the keys you press when looking for matches. So, feel free to mix fonts as much as you wish—it won’t affect Finale’s Type Into Score feature.
• Alterations: Type a “b” or “#” (SHIFT+3) to tell Finale that the root or alternate bass has a sharp or flat, or that a sharp or flat appears as a character in the suffix. (Just type two or more consecutive characters for other alterations, like double- or triple-sharps.) In rare cases, Finale may not know where an alteration belongs, such as the chords G 9 and G 9. In this case, when you type “Gb9”, Finale normally associates the alteration with the root (and will display G 9). When you want a suffix that begins with an alteration (such as G 9), tell Finale that the alteration isn’t part of the root by typing a comma after the root (in this case, by typing “G,b9”).
• Suffixes: When typing suffixes (like those provided in the Maestro Font Default file, or those provided in the chord suffix libraries), type them as you’d read them. Finale looks at the characters in the order they’re entered when it tries to find a match for the suffix (all suffixes in your document appear in the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box); what you type must match the order of the suffix characters exactly. If Finale doesn’t find an exact match, it assumes you want to create a new suffix and displays the Chord Suffix Editor dialog box to let you finish defining the suffix.

Tip. When you create your own suffixes, add characters to the suffixes in the order you’d say them out loud—it will make typing chords easier in the long run. Whatever you enter (whether it follows convention or not), Finale will faithfully match the characters in the order you type them with the order they were created in the Chord Suffix Editor dialog box.

• Alternate Bass: Type a slash (/), an underscore (SHIFT+hyphen), or a bar symbol (|) to indicate whether an alternate bass note should appear next to, below, or slightly to the right of the chord, respectively. Finale knows that what you type after the slash, underscore or bar is the alternate bass note for the chord.
• Capitalization: Finale displays chords like “F” and “e”, or “IV” and “iii”. When you enter chords, it is case-sensitive. For example, if you type a lowercase “d” in the key of C Major, and Roman is selected as the chord style, Finale will display “ii”, as opposed to “II” if you enter an uppercase “D”. Finale also knows the difference between a lower case “b” chord and the character representing the flat (also a “b”). For example, type a b-flat lowercase chord simply by typing “bb”—Finale knows the first character is the root, but the second is an alteration. Capitalization also matters in suffixes—that’s how Finale distinguishes a “CM7” from “Cm7”.
• Special Characters: You can type a “b” for flat and “#” (SHIFT+3) for sharp. Finale also makes other common chord characters available at a keystroke, the diminished “” and half-diminished “” symbols. Since their key combinations may be difficult to remember, Finale offers easy to remember substitutes: the “o” (lower-case letter o) and “%” (SHIFT+5) keys add diminished and half-diminished symbols respectively. You can turn off this automatic substitution by deselecting the Substitute Symbols command in the Chord menu. These special characters only work with the Arial, Times or JazzText chord libraries.
• Shortcuts: In addition to keystroke shortcuts for musical symbols like diminished and sharp, Finale offers a fast entry shortcut for users who know their Finale suffixes well. If you know a particular suffix’s number, enter a chord with a suffix directly by typing the root, a colon (:), and the number, then move to the next note—Finale adds the suffix automatically. If you don’t remember the number, you can type the root, a colon, a zero (such as C:0), then hit the spacebar; before leaving the current note, Finale will display the Chord Suffix Selection dialog where you can choose the suffix you need. For example, when working with the Maestro Font Default file, you can easily enter a “Cm7(s5)” by typing “C:9” instead of all the individual characters, “Cm7(s5). Since the “m7(s5)” suffix appears in slot number 9 in the Chord Suffix Selection dialog box, Finale knows to enter it automatically. If you take a moment to remember the suffixes you use frequently, this shortcut can save you a lot of typing.

Use these keys to perform the indicated actions when you type chords into the score:

See Also:

Chord symbols

Chord tool

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