Different Placement for Chord Symbols and Fingering

• Mar 13, 2019 - 14:34

I have entered all of my chord symbols BELOW the staff. When I go to enter the fingering, that is also below the staff, and I would like the fingering to be above the staff. To do that I have to move all of the fingering, one digit at a time, above the staff, and then for each fingering, dink around with the placement so it all looks nice and even. Please see the attached image.
Is it possible to have the chord symbols below the staff and the fingering above?

Attachment Size
Fingering Placement.png 47.67 KB

Comments

• Mar 13, 2019 - 15:38

OK. I selected one of the fingerings that I had to move (Offset = 11.61sp), then clicked Format > Save style and gave it the name "Fingering Style". Next, clicked on one of the notes in a chord (shown circled in blue) and clicked Format > Load style, but I did not see "Fingering Style", I only saw "Fingering" in the Inspector. I typed in another fingering ("2",shown circled in red). Unfortunately for me, MS placed that fingering below the staff . Below, I have included an image of what I'm trying to say. Fingering Placement 1.png

Reply

• Mar 13, 2019 - 20:36

Can you explain what exactly you are trying to do and why? And then attach your actual score? Then we can assist better. But moving fingering above the staff is easy and doesn't need to be done one at a time, just select all fingerings at once then set to Above in the Inspector (assuming you are on the most current version 3.0.5).

Reply

• Mar 15, 2019 - 16:51

I used MS version 3.0.3 to make the score. To do this I started a new score and in the New Score wizard I clicked Solo > Piano to create two staves. Then I entered all of my notes, rests, and chords. I would like to place the chord symbols (names) above the treble clef, and to place the chord fingerings below the bass clef. I couldn't find a way to do that so after I entered the chord symbols and fingering, I moved the fingering, one-by-one, to where I wanted them. Please refer to the image that I posted in an earlier posting.
I hope this is enough information. If you still want the complete score, I will be glad to post it.

Reply

• Mar 15, 2019 - 18:01

Chord symbols already appear above the staff by default, and fingerings already appear below the staff by default for the bottom staff of piano score. If you want the chord symbols to appear above the top staff rather than above the bottom staff, simply enter them on the top staff. So really, you should not have needed to move anything manually whatsoever.

If I take your file, right-click a fingering, Select / All Similar Elements, then hit the reset button next to the offset and turn automatic placement back on, I get exactly the right results. Similarly, if I right-click a chord symbol, Select / All Similar Elements, again hit the reset next to offset and turn automatic placement back on, then Ctrl+X to cut, then click the first note of the top staff and press Ctrl+V to paste, again, everything is exactly as it shoudl be.

Meaning, you didn't need to do any manual adjustments here whatsoever, everything works perfectly right out of the box. Although you may wish to adjust the style defaults for chord symbols to keep them above the slurs, or flip the slurs below the staff with "X", as the way you had it the slurs were colliding with the chord symbols and that's not good. You also have a lot of extra distance between the staves, not sure why, but I'd reset grand staff distance back to the default as well.

If you meant to say, you wanted the fingerings above the bottom staff, here again, no reaosn to resort to all that one-by-one manual adjustment. Simply right-click one, Select / All Similar Elements, and set the Placement to Above in the Inspector. Or, instead of using a single instrument with two staves, use two instruments of a single staff each - that way the fingerings would default to above (MuseScore follows the usual rule of placing fingerings above the staff except for the bottom staff of a grand staff).

Reply

• Mar 15, 2019 - 23:01

I'm working through what you wrote:
I right-clicked a fingering and then clicked Select > All Similar Elements. The Inspector appeared (with a "Fingering" pane at the bottom and a Style: value that was blank). That is shown in Figure 1 below (if the image placement works like I expect - if not, well...).
Fig 1.png
When I went to hit "the reset button next the offset" I could not find anything that resembled "offset..." so I assumed that you meant Format > Reset Style, and that's what I did. That changed the typeface for both the fingering and the chord symbols back to their original values as shown in Figure 2 below.
Fig 2.png
It also returned the spacing between the bass and treble clefs back to its default value.
Lastly, I enabled Automatic Placement in the Inspector and that moved the chord symbols to above the treble clef, the fingerings to below the bass clef, boogered the fingering positioning somewhat, and restored the grand staff spacing to its default, as shown in Figure 3.
Fig 3.png
So my question is... is it possible to move the fingering to between the treble and bass staves and if so, how?
(I have another question regarding Styles that I'll post a bit later.)
Thank you for your help!

Reply

• Mar 16, 2019 - 02:11

The offset fields are towards the top of the Inspector, right below the Automatic Placement checkbox. This is how you undo the problems caused by the manual adjustments you made. Do this for the chord symbols as well as the fingerings. Or for that matter, just do Ctrl+A to select all then press Ctrl+R, which resets almost everything back to defaults.

To move the fingerings above the staff, do just as I said - select them all, set Placement to Above in the Inspector (very last field). In the future, better to use other method I suggested - instead of creating a score for one instrument with two staves, create it for two instruments of one staff each.

Your slurs are also manually adjusted, incorrectly. Instead of turning off autoplace and then dragging them and/or manually adjusting the shape, simply press "X" to flip a slur between above and below the staff. If you find yourself having to manually adjust more than a small percentage of elements of a given type, it's a sure sign you are doing something incorrectly, as it is almost always possible to set up so this isn't necessary, and the results will not only be much much easier, but also look much better.

Reply

• Mar 21, 2019 - 15:56

>>To move the fingerings above the staff, do just as I said - select them all, set Placement to Above in the Inspector (very last field). In the future, better to use other method I suggested - instead of creating a score for one instrument with two staves, create it for two instruments of one staff each.<<

I've tried this method, but when I click the next chord and enter its fingering, the fingering is again below the bass staff. Does one need to enter all of the fingering in the score before taking these steps? (I'd prefer to use the Piano setting for my staves.)

Reply

• Mar 21, 2019 - 16:56

Sorry, I should have clarified that - yes, you should do this after entering all the fingerings.

But, why use the Piano template when it is clearly the wrong tool for the job. This isn't pano music, at least, not conventionally notated piano music. You are creating a different / special / non-pianistic type of notation. So much better to actually set up your score in a way that supports what you want to do right out of the box, instead of setting it up incorrectly and then constantly fighting the program that is only trying to do things correctly for how you set up the score. Set up the score correctly in the first place and you don't have to fight.

In short, if you find yourself doing manually adjustments often, chances are excellent you have something set up incorrectly.

Reply

• Mar 22, 2019 - 01:06

I agree. I chose the piano staffs because it met my needs at the time. I'm creating scores for my Yamaha Arranger keyboard, and so I need a treble staff. I also need a bass staff to hold the chords and fingering (because I haven't played for over 55 years and my memory isn't what it used to be ;-). If you could suggest something that might work a little better for me, please do so.

Reply

• Mar 22, 2019 - 02:56

Lots of ways to go about this, but here's one:

1) choose Treble Staff as your main template when creating your score
2) go to Edit / Instruments and add a piano
3) remove the treble staff from the newly added piano

Now you'll have two instruments, each with one staff. This will allow fingerings to display above the bottom staff rather than below as is typical for actual piano music. You can do what you want with the instrument names and bracket. When you are satisfied things are working as you want, save this to your Templates folder, then you can re-use it any time you want.

That all assumes you really want to continue with this highly non-standard system of notation. Personally, I'd much rather just do what the rest of the world does and use a regular piano and have the fingeirngs be below the bottom staff exactly as they already default. But if you do want the non=standard above-bottom-staff fingering, the steps above should give it to you.

Reply

• Mar 22, 2019 - 15:13

It's possible indeed you had a book that did that. But also, memory can play tricks. I have many editions older than that and all place fingering outside the staves. It's more logical - it keeps the center clear for dynamics, and it keeps the staves from getting too far apart. Only if there are multiple voices on a staff do the fingerings go inside (and MuseScore does this correctly by default as well).

Reply

• Mar 22, 2019 - 17:00

I am trying to set up a new score with two instruments, each with one staff, but I am having problems doing so.
1) I choose Treble Staff as my main template when creating my score.
2) I go to Edit / Instruments and add a piano.
3) I try to remove the treble staff from the newly added piano but I cannot do this because I have no Remove button. I don't think I did anything wrong, but I'm kinda stuck and I don't know what to do next.

Reply

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.