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Chord Spacing

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 9:15 am
by aemusic
Is there a function for chord spacing (like music spacing) so that bars space out automatically in order to avoid chords clashing (pic attached). Thanks in advance.

Re: Chord Spacing

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 11:28 am
by Peter Thomsen
The problem here seems to be the measures with Slash Notation, right?
My guess is that those measures do not contain any entries, right?

To get a better spacing you can add rests in the empty measures.

First, add Half rests, then Apply Music Spacing, and Update Layout.

Where more spacing is needed, change a Half rest to two Quarter rests, then Apply Music Spacing, and Update Layout.

Where more spacing is needed, change a Quarter rest to two Eighth rests, then Apply Music Spacing, and Update Layout.

Where more spacing is needed, change an Eighth rest to two Sixteenth rests, then Apply Music Spacing, and Update Layout.

Re: Chord Spacing

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 11:34 am
by michelp
You can also try Document Options -> Music Spacing -> Avoid collision and check the box "Chords". But it won't do miracles.
Other suggestions :
• Resize the chords in the measures where there are 4 chords. Utilities -> Change -> Chords -> Scale Chords to : X
But this works with moderate reductions, otherwise the spacing of the elements of the suffix will look bad.
• Use another staff (no line, nothing) and use the resize tool to reduce it. Chords will space correctly. Group the staves.
• To save a little space, use the "subtext" alternate bass in case of a simple inversion (This is quite common practice).

P.S.: in your example, if you reduce the width of the fourth bar (use the Measure tool handles), you could allocate more width to the first three measures.

Re: Chord Spacing

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2019 5:15 pm
by Nick Mazuk
There's also a good tutorial on this on OFNOTE.

http://www.rpmseattle.com/of_note/final ... l-spacing/

Re: Chord Spacing

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:39 pm
by at8ax
Something I've been wondering about: Is there a difference between, say, C7/E and
C7
E
? When I have this situation, I'll do C7_E to create the stacked chord (is that what you meant by "subtext"?), but do some players read that differently? If so, what's the other interpretation?

Re: Chord Spacing

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:46 pm
by zuill
That is traditionally used for polychords. So, not C7 with an E bass, but C7 superimposed over an E triad.

Zuill

Re: Chord Spacing

Posted: Mon Feb 04, 2019 10:08 pm
by michelp
Like Zuill said.
A chord over a bass NOTE will use "Subtext" as its alternate bass in the chord definition window (see image, where the 3 possibilities are visible).
 
subtext.jpg
 
In the case of subtext, the line will be oblique. For that reason, the whole chord symbol takes less space on the score. That's also a reason why the "After Root" option, C7/E (on the same baseline) is not used so much.

The option "Under Root" uses the horizontal line for polychords, in other words for 2 superimposed chords. Note that Finale cannot define a bottom suffix, so one has to use a workaround (define 2 chords and place a horizontal line in between them).