Great website for identifying what chords to use in compositions

• Apr 16, 2022 - 20:01

MuseScore 3.6 has a very nice feature which allows you to insert a chord in the background that the synth will play, along with your written score. To access it, simply click on a note in the instrument track you wish the chord to be played in (piano, violin, cello, etc), then press the "Ctrl + K" keys on your keyboard, and enter the keys that are in the chord. For example, to insert a playable "C" chord on your piano track, left-click on any note in the piano track that you want the chord to accompany. Then, press "Ctrl+K", then press the "C" key, then press "Enter" to close the dialog. A "C" chord will now be played as a piano. See the MuseScore handbook for more info.

Some chords can get complicated. To solve that problem completely and find out the best chord to include in your score, visit this website:
https://www.scales-chords.com/chordid.php

Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the little boxes to enter all the notes you want in the chord. Then click the "Find these notes" button. The result will be the exact chord ID that those notes are in. In MuseScore, enter those notes when called for exactly as seen. For example, if your notes are, C, E, G & Bb, then check the boxes for them in the menu as:

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Then click "Find these notes". The result will be a "C7" chord, as so:

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In MuseScore, you can now enter that specific chord into the score, using the "Ctrl+K" key, then type "C7" & press "Enter". For example, here I've created a C7 chord to accompany my piano track (ignore the piano notes for now).

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It works very well, and can identify very complex chords (i.e. - E7b5sus).

Enjoy

Frank

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