Capo chords; no sharps

[Erik Van Geit]

Hello

I have some music in the key of F with some chords like
F, Bb, Gm

Added "capo" chords via menu Utilities.
Capo at fret 1, so all chords should be a half tone lower
Result
E, A, Gbm
I am not pleased with that Gbm, it should be F#m

QUESTION 1:
How can I get F# immediately: did I miss a setting? I played with "enharmonic spelling" like "favor sharps", but didn't work.
QUESTION 2 (if there is no solution to 1):
When I try to edit the capo chords it won't let me enter sharps: when I type "F#m" it changes to "Fm". This behaviour doesn't appear when writing chords without capo.
I converted my keyboard to "qwerty" to no avail. I tried to copy (from another chord with sharps)-paste (instead of typin) to no avail.

I've added an attachment.

thank you for reading
kind regards
Erik

[Peter Thomsen]

1) Take a look in the Chord menu.
Is the menu item “Simplify Spelling” selected or de-selected?
To get the desired layout (with the Capo Chords) “Simplify Spelling” must be selected.

2) With “Simplify Spelling” selected you can get the layout in this way:
Enter the Gm chord as F##m.

[zuill]

Try F##m.

Zuill

P.S.: I posted too slowly. However, unchecking Simplify Spelling doesn't seem to work with Capo Chords, at least in this case.

[Erik Van Geit]

thank you, Zuill

In the mean time I saw that the attachment was not there and I added it.

Typing the double # did the trick.
Problem would be if there were a lot of chords to correct... So if we could find an answer to get the correct results straight on that would be very nice. For me personally nevermind because I almost never use this feature.

beste regards,
ERik

[Peter Thomsen]

… unchecking Simplify Spelling doesn't seem to work with Capo Chords, at least in this case.

Exactly!
To get the desired layout (with the Capo Chords) “Simplify Spelling” must be selected.

This is one of the cases where it is a bad idea to de-select “Simplify Spelling”.

For What It Is Worth, I tend to keep “Simplify Spelling” selected, even if I sometimes have to type a chord root like F###.

[Erik Van Geit]

Hi, Peter
Thanks for joining.
For me "simplify spelling" doens't make any difference; does it for you?

kind regards,
Erik

[dankreider]

There's another way to do it. It's not easy, but it's the only option I know of.

Once you have your capo chords created, right-click on the one you want to change and select "Edit chord definition..."

Show advanced

Change the numbers in "Numeric definition" for "Scale tone" and "alteration." For example, If i had a Dsus and capo1 produced Dbsus, and I wanted C#sus, I would set scale tone to 4 and alteration to 2. You might have to play with them a bit, but that's what I've had to do.

Finale folks told me this improvement was in the works when I first asked. That was 8 years ago.

[MikeHalloran]

Hello

I have some music in the key of F with some chords like
F, Bb, Gm

Added "capo" chords via menu Utilities.
Capo at fret 1, so all chords should be a half tone lower
Result
E, A, Gbm
I am not pleased with that Gbm, it should be F#m

QUESTION 1:
How can I get F# immediately: did I miss a setting? I played with "enharmonic spelling" like "favor sharps", but didn't work.
QUESTION 2 (if there is no solution to 1):
When I try to edit the capo chords it won't let me enter sharps: when I type "F#m" it changes to "Fm". This behaviour doesn't appear when writing chords without capo.
I converted my keyboard to "qwerty" to no avail. I tried to copy (from another chord with sharps)-paste (instead of typin) to no avail.

I've added an attachment.

thank you for reading
kind regards
Erik

Your real problem is that, in the key of F, Gbm is the correct name for that chord, not F#m. Even if every guitarist in the world calls it that, Finale knows the correct name. Those who live in the world of equal temperment assume that there's no difference. Bowed strings and wind players know there is.

It's nice that there is a workaround for guitar players.

I played the guitar/banjo book in a lot of Broadway shows over the years. Those arrangers generally followed the rules—enough so that when you found one that didn't, it looked really weird.

Paint Your Wagon sticks out as one of those oddball shows where the chords often didn't match the key signatures. I probably played that in 1974 or '75 but I remember it. The notes were usually right but the chords were so wrong that it affected voicing. I had to go through it with the conductor's score so that I could see the notes, figure out the correct chord names and voice the part correctly.

[Erik Van Geit]

dankreider & MikeHalloran, thank you for your input

dankreider, I'll try that out to

MikeHalloran,
about

Your real problem is that, in the key of F, Gbm is the correct name for that chord, not F#m

I see it as follows: when we transpose from F to E all chords will change names: F will become E, G will become F#, A will become G#, etcetera.
So in the key of E (the key which you are playing with capo 1 when the piece is in F) Gb is not the correct name for the 2nd chord.

Anyway, I've decided to put it in G instead of F , which will make the guitarists happy

kind regards
Erik

[MikeHalloran]

dankreider & MikeHalloran, thank you for your input

dankreider, I'll try that out to

MikeHalloran,
about

Your real problem is that, in the key of F, Gbm is the correct name for that chord, not F#m

I see it as follows: when we transpose from F to E all chords will change names: F will become E, G will become F#, A will become G#, etcetera.
So in the key of E (the key which you are playing with capo 1 when the piece is in F) Gb is not the correct name for the 2nd chord.

Anyway, I've decided to put it in G instead of F , which will make the guitarists happy

kind regards
Erik

It's the key of E only if there are sharps in the key signature. Putting a capo on doesn't change that. Counterintuitive, I know.

I'm only explaining what happened. As a player for over 50 years, I agree that it's not the way guitarists think unless you have played a ton of charts.

My workaround was simple. I would just change the key for my students with a note on the page that the song was being played in another key and that this was a capo chart. Many of those charts had to conform with church hymnals so changing the fundamental key was not an option.

Whatever works—works, right?

[Mike Giacalone]

One way I fixed them for my church charts that needed both original key chords and capo chords is to double click the chord, (in my case a Eb/G with the capo chord showing a D/Gb). I clicked the square to select the capo chord. This should highlight the capo chord so you now can delete that chord. Now you can use the text tool to type a replacement capo chord (in my case D/F#) in the place of the missing capo chord.

I wish Finale would fix this. The Inversion difference of a Eb to a G is a minor third (Eb,F,G). The difference of D to Gb is a flat forth (D,E,F,Gb)
This is as I remember my theory from way back when.

Mike

[zuill]

One way I fixed them for my church charts that needed both original key chords and capo chords is to double click the chord, (in my case a Eb/G with the capo chord showing a D/Gb). I clicked the square to select the capo chord. This should highlight the capo chord so you now can delete that chord. Now you can use the text tool to type a replacement capo chord (in my case D/F#) in the place of the missing capo chord.

I wish Finale would fix this. The Inversion difference of a Eb to a G is a minor third (Eb,F,G). The difference of D to Gb is a flat forth (D,E,F,Gb)
This is as I remember my theory from way back when.

Mike

No need for all the extra work. Just enter Eb/F## and the result will be D/F#. Much easier.

Zuill