User manual

Table Of Contents

Chord symbols

Chord symbols describe the vertical harmony of the music at a specic moment. They

are frequently used in jazz and pop music, where players often improvise around chord

progressions.

Chord symbols shown above slashes on the Clarinet and Piano staves to help the players improvise around

the notated Cornet melody.

In Dorico Elements, chord symbols exist globally at the corresponding rhythmic positions by

default. This means that you only have to input chord symbols once, but they can appear above

multiple or no staves as required. However, in some circumstances it is necessary to show

different chord symbols for different players at the same rhythmic position. In such cases, you

can input local chord symbols.

You can hide/show chord symbols project-wide above specic instrument staves, including if

multiple instruments belong to the same player, and in different layouts. You can also show

chord symbols only within chord symbol/slash regions and hide/show individual chord symbols.

If you have input chord symbols but no players in the current layout are set to show them, they

are indicated by signposts.

Depending on the style of music, there are different conventions regarding how to present chord

names.

Dorico Elements provides a single default chord symbol appearance preset that applies to all

chord symbols.