7sus4 chords do not display in the correct font.

• Sep 25, 2012 - 12:39

I'm working on a score requiring the entry of various 7sus4 chords, MuseScore will not display them in the current chord style (jazzchords.xml) but simply leaves them in Times Roman.

I have ascertained that this is because the 7sus4 suffix is not defined in the style sheet.

The syntax of this file is by no means clear.

Can you help me customise it to display this chord properly?

Incidentally I tried the customchords.xml list to be found when searching for this issue, but that displays all suffixes as a vertical line.


Comments

In jazzchords.xml, the proper abbreviation is simply 7sus - the 4 is understood. Same story with cchords_muse.xml, which is based on the old jazzchords.xml and is what I think of as its replacement. I set up the "cchords" files to faciliate customization; that's what the initial "c" stands for. So the idea is, you start with the version of "cchords" that comes closest to what you want, and then if you to customize it further, you edit that and save your own version. There are instructions at the top of the "cchords" file that explain the process. It's not pretty, but it works.

As it is, the cchords_rb style uses "sus4" (since it is trying to emulate the "Real Book", which uses this). The rest of the "cchords" files all use "sus" by itself, as that is the more common usage by most other publishers. The "customchords" file you mention is something that eventually formed the basis of the "cchords" files, but the "cchords" version is the official one shipped with MuseScore.

2.0 provides a chord editor window (Style / Chords), but as far as I know, you have to edit each chord id individually, and there are a *lot* of chord id's that use the "sus" abbreviation. I am not sure if there are plans to enhance this, but on my list of things to do is to create a utility that will generate a new chord descriptor file for you, so all you have to do is fill in a dialog where you choose what sort of abreviations you wish to use for major and minor, whether you want to display "4" in your sus chords, etc All the same stuff you can currently edit by hand in the cchords file, but without the need to decipher all that XML. I'm just waiting on, well, I don't know, the right combination of free time along with some sort of clear signal as to the what else has changed or will change in how chords are handled.

In reply to by ChurchOrganist

Ubdersood. Well, you use the cchords_rb as is, or pick one of the other "cchords" file and make the change - just a two line change toward the top of the file. You should have no trouble figuring it out (which isn't to say my documentation is that great, but I jnow you're good with this kiind of stuff).

With jazz chords, a global search and replace on sus could do the trick as well.

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