How do I update a score to the new jazz lead sheet format?

• Jul 29, 2011 - 16:19

I've got a jazz piece I did about a week or so ago which I'd really like to update to the new jazz lead sheet format. I tried a couple of things, but it didn't seem to work out as I expected. I should be able to just apply a new, um, 'score style' as Sibelius calls it, shouldn't I? What's the right way of doing that?

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• Jul 30, 2011 - 15:38

It's unfortunately easier said than done.

First step is to go to Style->Load Style and select Jazz_Lead_Sheet.mss. This will set all your style settings the same way that the new Jazz Lead Sheet template has them set. So some things, like margins and spacings, will fix themselves immediately. But existing text elements won't convert to the new font automatically. Here's how I'd suggest going about fixing these manually:

Go to Layout->Page Settings and change the "Space" value. The new template uses 2.000mm, which is a *lot* bigger than the old Lead Sheet template. Even if you don't go all the way to 2mm, any change here will at least cause MuseScore to redraw some of the text elements using the font specified in the style. Then go to Style->Edit General Style->Chordnames and change the chordname style to something else, hit Apply, then change back to cchords_muse (or, if you prefer one of the other "cchords" styles, change it and leave it. This should take care of your chords.

You're probably best of just deleting and re-creating any elements that don't get fixed automatically by this. Titles, composers, rehearsal marks, and probably other things will be in this category. But at least chords and ordinary staff text are semi-automatic.

Another possibility to try is to go to Edit->Preference->Import and set Jazz_Lead_Sheet.mss to be used as the style file. Then you can load your old lead sheets, save them as MusicXML, and load that. This will actually do a pretty good job of converting, but you will lose some formatting information in the translation.

EDIT: another possibility: from your old lead sheet do select all (Ctrl-A), then copy (Ctrrl-C), then create a new lead sheet using the new template, and paste into there (Ctrl-V). This gets notes and chords but not other text or manual formatting. Lyrics come over but still in old font. You can select lyric, right click, text properties, change font, and check the "apply to all elements of same type".

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• Aug 4, 2011 - 10:19

Ok, I ended up using the copy and paste method, seemed simplest. Results are fine, but unfortunately some of the chords symbols I thought I'd entered the first time round don't seem to have been saved, so I'm going to have to go back to the guitar and recompose the ending a bit. Once that's done I'll probably post the piece here.

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• Aug 10, 2011 - 21:49

Nice piece! One thing, though - many of the chord symbols you entered are not in the proper format for your selected chord description file. This means meaning they are not being recognized by MuseScore, which is why some of the flat signs are displaying as the letter "b" instead, and in general, the chord symbols look mismatched. Basically, it's your minor chords and the one with parentheses that are causing the problems.

See the handbook entry on Chord names for more on your various options for styles of chord symbols. It looks to me like you'd probably want to be using the "cchords_sym.xml" style, which uses "-" for minor and a triangle for major (which you create by typing "ma"), but no parentheses around alterations. After changing to that style, you will have to either re-enter those chords, or in the case of the minor chords, at least edit them and hit Enter, Esc, Space, or Tab to get MuseScore to reparse them as is.

It is absolutely worth it, though. Right now. because these chords aren't recognized they don't look nearly as good as they could, nor will they transpose correctly, nor will they export to MusicXML.

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• Aug 11, 2011 - 11:39

Thanks, I'll have another look at it. I reckon what I'll do is delete all the chords and enter them again. When I notated this the first time I found myself fighting against things which didn't seem to work right, which is probably why I've ended up with odditites in some places.

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• Aug 11, 2011 - 15:32

It really is just the minor and altered dominant chords, but sure, re-entering them all would work. Here's how I'd do it, though. First, double click the first problem chord, edit it if necessary, and hit Tab, which as of 1.1 moves to the next measure (thanks, lasconic!). Keeping Tabbing from ,easure to measure, editing only those chords that need it. When you get to the last two bars, use space to move by beat instead of by measure. For the chords in parentheses, don't enter the parens as part of the chord - that too causes them not to be recognized. Instead, enter the parens separatley (as chordnames or ordinary text) amd drag them into position.

First step, though, is to make a call on which chord symbol style file you wish to use, set it. You can run the chord chart plugin to generate a complete list of chords for any given style. As I said, I'm guessing you'll want the cchords_sym style. You'll have to set that for each chart you create, unless you save your own template (just an empty lead sheet but with that change made).

Btw, for the thirteenth chord, just D13 is how you'd enter it regardless of which style you select. Only altered extensions get listed separately eg, D7b13. I gather Berklee used to advocate a system where D7(13) would be correct? At some point, I'll probably add a couple more predefined styles, but probably not until 2.0, as there will be changes to how all this works internally.

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