Sibelius chord query

[Nick Baty]

If I'm writing a jazz-style lead sheet, to indicate a Maj7 choir I add an inverted triangle to denote the Maj7. However, in Sibelius, I can only manage to get the triangle with the base at the bottom and the apex at the top! Anyone know how to invert this?

[musicus]

As Nick will no doubt know, but for the sake of other readers, in Sibelius 6 (I'm not sure about earlier versions), House Style --> Edit Chord Symbols... --> Edit Suffix lets you choose your preferred chord symbol suffix from among the ones that Sibelius knows. I looked through the ones it knows for Maj7, but all the triangular ones are 'base under apex'. Nor can I find any way of teaching Sibelius any new ones. It may be that these symbols are characters in a music font, so perhaps the answer might be to find a music font that has an 'apex under base' triangle in the corresponding glyph slot, or even - and I hesitate to suggest this - to redefine an existing font in Fontographer.

If you're a Finale user and want to do this and perhaps think that the above is rather nerdy and complex, wait till you see this: http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=316599

Incidentally Nick, I can't find any reference online to using an inverted triangle for maj7 (I always thought the upwards-pointing apex expressed the 'sharpness' of the major seventh). Could this be a local variant?

[Nick Baty]

Now that's really interesting, Musicus. I'd only ever seen it as inverted but if others undertstand what apex up means then the problem is solved. But have a look at Music for the Mass Vol 1, pp 128-129. Bottom systems on both pages use inverted triangle.

What do others think? How are used to interpreting the triangle, pointing in either direction?

Btw, Musicus, what think ye of Sibelius 6? Is it worth upgrading? I had to add a few patches to Sibelius 5 to help it run smoothly with Snow Leopard.

[musicus]

I have to keep up with Sibelius for work, so I buy all the upgrades. Some have been rather so-so, but Sibelius 6 has been one of the best of them and very worthwhile. You can find all the update details here: http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/6/index.html (the videos are well worth a look).

The new features that I would not want to be without include:

• faultless running under Snow Leopard (Mac)
• Magnetic Layout (automatically fixes 99% of colliding objects)
• Optimise Staff Spacing (no more stave dragging!)
• faster operation generally
• Improvements to the whole of the Sound Libraries/Playback/Audio side of things.

If you buy it I don't think you will regret it.

[Southern Comfort]

If you're a Finale user and want to do this and perhaps think that the above is rather nerdy and complex, wait till you see this: http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=316599

You knew I wouldn't be able to resist this. It's the simplest thing in the world to create your own chord suffixes in Finale, and the folk in that thread are clearly at widely varying degrees of competence/experience. Incidentally, 2011 is much better in this respect than previous versions, making capo chords in parentheses a cinch, for example.

Incidentally Nick, I can't find any reference online to using an inverted triangle for maj7 (I always thought the upwards-pointing apex expressed the 'sharpness' of the major seventh). Could this be a local variant?

I always though that the base-up apex-down shape was a 7 with an additional bar to make the triangle and indicate the maj7. That's what Chris Walker used to say, too.

Nick, there's a TrueType font named Starbats (NB not the same as the one of that name by Dieter Schumacher which came much later, but a Wingding-type font) which has a perfectly acceptable triangle of the kind you're after. Then you can use it either as a suffix or as a note expression in Finale — presumably Sibelius 6 will allow you to do the same sort of thing? Wingdings 3 font also has the same symbol. I'll have them both sent to you.

[Nick Baty]

And now sooner said than done.
Email link has just arrived (although I already have Wingdings 1-3).
Many thanks for this.

[musicus]

If you're a Finale user and want to do this and perhaps think that the above is rather nerdy and complex, wait till you see this: http://forum.makemusic.com/default.aspx?f=6&m=316599

You knew I wouldn't be able to resist this. It's the simplest thing in the world to create your own chord suffixes in Finale, and the folk in that thread are clearly at widely varying degrees of competence/experience. Incidentally, 2011 is much better in this respect than previous versions, making capo chords in parentheses a cinch, for example.

Fair enough. (Actually, and for the record, I do rate Sibelius and Finale very highly. They both do a fine job.)

Your note about capo chords in parentheses reminds me of when I was typesetting Psalm Songs and needed this feature. I was doing the job in Finale - I forget which version - so I actually telephoned America to ask how to do it. I was told that the program couldn't do it and, what is more, they had never been asked for that feature before. I was astonished. Consequently, all the parenthetical capo chord symbols in Psalm Songs were done with the Text Tool, which was hours and hours of work. I am so pleased they have now fixed this.

[Southern Comfort]

I was told that the program couldn't do it and, what is more, they had never been asked for that feature before.

They lied. I first asked Coda (now Make Music) for this feature in 1991 [sic] and repeated the request at intervals after that. I also know that I was not the only one to do so.

[Southern Comfort]

Consequently, all the parenthetical capo chord symbols in Psalm Songs were done with the Text Tool, which was hours and hours of work. I am so pleased they have now fixed this.

You'd have saved yourself quite a lot of trouble by inputting them as a separate verse of lyrics.... Thank goodness those days are now gone. The only thing the chord tool can't do now is give you a closing parenthesis to a chord with an alternate bass, but it's simple to create that parenthesis as a note expression and insert it when necessary.

[Nick Baty]

A straw poll around the music and music technology departments in work today revealed that noone had heard of the inverted triangle. All knew exactly what the apex over base triangle meant – maj7!

[quaeritor]

Anyone else struggling to find the liturgical content in this (fascinating) thread? - there's a perfectly good thread on notation software over on Sounds Off.

Droit de moderateur perhaps?

Q

[gwyn]

The thread on the Sibelius forum discussing the Implimentation of the new Mass Translation is very poor in its content.

[musicus]

... if others undertstand what apex up means then the problem is solved ...

QED, I think.

[Nick Baty]

Anyone else struggling to find the liturgical content in this (fascinating) thread? - there's a perfectly good thread on notation software over on Sounds Off.

Apologies Quaeritor. It won't happen again.

[gwyn]

I've found this thread to be a rather informative one. I'm familiar with the symbol but hadn't really take a lot of notice of it since I don't read the chords.

Always worth knowing about though.