… These are things I would like to be able to do:

- copy chords from one staff to another, change the instrument of the staff and have the fretboards change to those of the chosen instrument

- choose "Fretboard" under "Play" in the Chord Definition dialog and have all occurrences of that chord symbol definition suffix fretboard instrument group play the same way throughout the score on every chord symbol on all staves …

1) To copy chords (and only chords), use the Copy Filter.

To change an instrument: Utilities menu > Change Instrument…

I suppose that you are talking about transposing instruments, like e. g. Clarinet in Bb.

When you copy chords to a transposing instrument, the chords will be transposed to the instrument’s key.

2) I am not sure what you mean with that long sentence.

As the Chord Tool works now, choosing “Fretboard” under “Play” in the Chord Definition only affects that very chord “locally”.

It sounds like you are asking for a way to do the same “globally” via a single click, right?

I am not sure I understand, but take a look at

Utilities menu > Change > Chords…

In the dialog box Change Chord Assignments, in the pane Play, there is a check box for Fretboard.

1) Utilities > Change Instrument did not change the fretboards.

My recipe: New document, add staff for guitar, add staff for ukulele.  Put notes then chords in the guitar staff, turn on fretboards, copy and paste into the ukulele staff (using Copy Filter).  The chords in the ukulele staff are guitar fretboards.  In the Ukulele staff, Utilities>Change Instrument... to ukule does nothing.

Is there another method to change all the fretboards on a staff to those of the staff's instrument?

2) The long sentence reflects my ignorance about what is going on with chords, about which I am seeking clarity.  I do not know how to ask the question if I do not understand the concepts.

The guidance to use the Utilities>Change>Chords... is helpful, thanks.  The way it works is that a note needs to be selected, then the command can be applied.  The change will be applied to the chord attached to the note.  Multiple notes can be selected at once and multiple chords can be changed at once.

However, it doesn't apply to all chords having that fretboard throughout the score.  It's a fine work-around to be able to select the whole score and then apply the Change command, but it further confuses my understanding of chords and fretboards.  This means that the same fretboard can play differently throughout the score, and therefore the data structure means that fretboard play and note are two additional elements in the entity-relation diagram that I need to integrate.

While I appreciate the advice for help with the immediate issues, I still long for a conceptual understanding.

I honestly don't know what a fretboard is in Finale.  Is it related to instruments? Is it related to notes?  Is it related to groups?  Is it unrelated to any other entity, but is rather some sort of ad hoc patch of tweaks and adjustment, combining notation and musical expression?  

I don't understand the notion of "locally" and "globally" when it comes to musical structures. Is a chord not a chord no matter where it appears?  Is a fretboard not a fretboard no matter where it appears?

Perhaps this is a beginning of the document I'm looking for:

- a chord is a musical concept, it is unrelated to notation or instruments

- a chord instance is created in a score by attaching a chord symbol to a note or to a position within a measure

- an instance of a chord can have one fretboard

- a different instance of a chord (the same chord symbol attached to a different note) can have a different fretboard

- a chord symbol can have many fretboards

- a fretboard is a visual grid of strings and frets and fingering

- fretboard grid patterns can be inherited from collections organized by suffix

- each fretboard is keyed by an ID number within a chord symbol

- the ID of a fretboard has as an attribute its instrument

- for all instances of the same chord symbol and fretboard ID, a change to the grid fingering or the instrument appear throughout the score

- the first instance of a chord in a new document will have a default fretboard, ID number 1

- the default fretboard of the the first instance of a chord will be guitar, no matter the instrument of the staff

- each instance of a chord has its own sound of play

- the sound of play of a fretboard does not depend on the instrument of the staff, the sound of play depends on the Fretboard Editor instrument selection.

- for each instance of a chord created, the default fretboard and instrument will be ID 1.  It is unrelated to the instrument of the staff.  

To solve my problem #1, perhaps there is something that will change the ID of all fretboards in a staff. I could set up a document that has ID 1 for guitar fretboard and instrument, and ID 2 to be ukulele fretboard and instrument.  I could create a guitar staff, copy and paste all the chords to ukulele staff, then change all the ID 1 to ID 2.

This is a start to my document on fretboards, I leave it here for the next reader that is as confused as I.

Mike

Mike,

This is a matter of “Finale-speak”.

There are Instruments, and there are Fretboard Instruments.

The following is “Finale-speak”:

1) In Finale, an Instrument is defined by its playback sound and its staff layout.

Example: For a Clarinet in Bb the playback sound is a Clarinet sound, and the staff layout is based on the fact that a Clarinet in Bb is a transposing instrument, notated two half-steps higher than its sounding pitch. For music sounding in the key of C Major the Bb Clarinet is notated in D Major (= two sharps). When you copy chords into the Clarinet staff, the chords will be transposed accordingly, so that if you e. g. copy the chords C - F - G7 into a clarinet staff, the chords (and fretboards) will appear transposed in the Clarinet staff, as D - G - A7.

Also, if you use the Change Instrument utility to change a selected region to Clarinet in Bb, the chords (and fretboards) will be transposed accordingly.

NB: Chords and their Fretboard Diagrams are not included in the definition of an Instrument. This means that you can display guitar fretboard diagrams on any part, e. g. on a Flute part, or on a Piano part. This is by design, and what users have requested.

Try this as a test: Create a document in the key of C Major, with a Flute part. Add some guitar fretboards to the Flute part. Use the utility to change the instrument to Clarinet in Bb. The chords and fretboards will change, and appear transposed for the Clarinet.

2) In Finale, a Fretboard Instrument is defined by its number of strings, and by how the strings are tuned. Fretboard Instruments are used in Tablature Notation, and in Chord Tool Fretboards.

… The guidance to use the Utilities>Change>Chords... is helpful, thanks …

Is was answering your request for a way to enable fretboard playback for all chords in the entire document “at one fell swoop” - instead of enabling fretboard playback one chord at a time. I suppose that this is, what you were talking about, right?

… The way it works is that a note needs to be selected, then the command can be applied …

This is not entirely correct. In the Selection Tool you do not select a note, but rather you select a region. If there is a chord symbol in the selected region, then you can use the utility to change that chord - even if there are no notes in the selected region.

… However, it doesn’t apply to all chords having that fretboard throughout the score …

Are you saying that some of the fretboards refuse to play back - even after you have used the utility to enable fretboard playback? I have not experienced that.

* Can you provide exact steps to reproduce the issue?

… I don't understand the notion of “locally” and “globally” …

What I meant by my words “locally” and “globally”, was this:

“locally” = only for that particular place in the document

“globally” = everywhere in the document

Indeed a chord is a chord no matter where it appears.

And a fretboard is a fretboard no matter where it appears.

But you can “locally” enable playback of a fretboard - or you can “globally” enable fretboard playback everywhere in the document.

In Other Words:

If you enter the same fretboard in several places in the same document, then you have multiple instances of that fretboard. For each instance you can enable fretboard playback - independent of the other instances. The different instances are not “linked”. Enabling playback of one instance does not affect playback of the other instances.

Thanks, this helps me understand the concepts.

This is an old thread, I know. But Mike Bonnice has asked some good questions. They deserve answers.

1) - What’s the difference between a Suffix and a Fretboard Group?

Assuming we are talking “Finale-speak”, a Suffix is the layout of a chord symbol’s suffix part.

Example: in the chord symbol F♯m7(♭5) the “root part” of the symbol is F♯, and the “suffix part” is m7(♭5).

You can edit a suffix in the Chord Suffix Editor where you for each font character in the suffix can control Font, Size, and Positioning.

In the Chord Suffix Editor you can also define Playback of the suffix, but the suffix playback is primitive; it only defines the intervals relative to the root. And these intervals will be the same in all 12 transpositions of the suffix. In Other Words: lousy voicing.

For serious chord symbol playback (with proper voicing), disable Chord Playback, and add chord playback notes in a hidden layer.

On The Other Hand, a Fretboard Group is the Suffix’ fretboards - for one fretboard instrument. This means that a Fretboard Group contains 12 fretboards for one particular fretboard instrument.

Often a Fretboard Group is named the same as the Suffix it belongs to.

Example:

For a Suffix called m7(♭5) there is a Fretboard Group called m7(♭5).

However, you can have more than one Fretboard Group for a specific Suffix - since you can hold the same {chord symbol} in several ways, and you can use more than one Fretboard Instrument. In that case it is a good idea to name the different Fretboard Groups carefully - so that you can keep track of what Group you are using.

Example of how you could name different Groups (for a minor triad):

Guitar, minor triad

Guitar, minor triad - Barre

Ukulele, minor triad

2) - How many fretboards can a Suffix have for a particular fretboard instrument?

12 fretboards = one for each of the 12 transpositions.

If you add more Fretboard Groups to the same Suffix, then each added Group will add 12 more fretboards.

3) - What is the use of a fretboard group name (in Fretboard Editor)?

The name of the Fretboard Group identifies the Fretboard Group.

You can name each Group as you like.

- In which dialogs does it appear?

It appears in the Fretboard Editor dialog box where you can edit it (e. g. rename it).

Also, in the Chord Definition the Fretboard Group is shown, in the syntax

Fretboard Group : Fretboard Instrument

However, in the Chord Definition you can not edit it; it is just shown there.

- How many Fretboard Group names can there be?

I do not know. Probably the max. number is so big that it is way more, than you will ever need. I would not worry.

- Is there a place to choose them, or see all of them?

For each Suffix you can expect at least one Fretboard Group. In most cases a Suffix will have only one Fretboard Group, and it will be named the same as the Suffix.

In the dialog box Fretboard Selection you can see the Fretboard Groups for the current Suffix. Or rather, you can see one fretboard from each Group.

How to get there:

From the Chord Definition, in the pane Fretboard, click the button {Select…}.

Unfortunately the Group name is not displayed in the Fretboard Selection. When you return to the Chord Definition, you can see the Fretboard Group name, followed by a colon and the Fretboard Instrument name.

4) - In the Fretboard Editor, when I change the Instrument using the pulldown menu, why don't the fretboards in the group change to those of the actual instrument?  The only thing that changes, is the number of strings, but chord shapes don't change.

To get things right, change both the Fretboard Instrument and the Fretboard Group.

When you are using more than one Fretboard Instrument in the same Finale document, it is a good idea to name each Fretboard Group in a such way that the name identifies both the Group’s Suffix and the Group’s Fretboard Instrument.

If you are using any other Fretboard Instrument than {Guitar in standard tuning}, then you will have to create the necessary Fretboard Groups yourself.

Fortunately you only have to do this work once.

To speed up the work in the Fretboard Editor, first create one fretboard (one transposition), then click the button ‘Generate’.

This step will transpose your custom fretboard to all 12 transpositions.

You probably will get some (high up transposition) fretboards you do not need.

Lock the fretboards you need, and customize the other fretboards.

Suffixes and Fretboard Groups are document specific.

You can save your custom Suffixes and Fretboard Groups as a Library that you can load into other documents, and you can create a custom template so that all new documents created from that template will contain all your custom Suffixes and Fretboard Groups.

Great explanation, Peter. I'm sure that's on the horizon, right along with the lyrics tool overhaul and making the percussion system understandable.

Or not.

This is very helpful.  One of my projects in retirement will be to do the big job of making perfect chord templates for future scores.  At the moment all my scores are a mixed bag of chord models representing my increasing knowledge over time of how things are supposed to work.

I've made big progress, here's what I can report.

The term "fretboard" is overloaded and needs disambiguation.  On one hand it is a graphical grid that appears on a score, on the other hand it's a data structure that contains a group of twelve of those graphical grids.  I'll call them fretboard grids and fretboard groups.

A suffix is a combination of a visual display, some scale tones, and some fretboard groups.  A suffix has one visual display for the chord symbol, one set of scale tones to play back, and as many fretboard groups as desired.  Each fretboard group within a suffix has a unique ID number, starting with ID 1, and a collection of 12 fretboard grids.  Each fretboard group has a name, but the name is simply a reference and has no functionality.  It's possible for a suffix to have multiple fretboard groups of the same name, though they will have different ID numbers.  The fretboard group number is unique within a suffix, but there can be many fretboard groups that have the same number between suffixes.  

Each fretboard group within a suffix has a fretboard instrument.  The fretboard instrument specifies the number and tuning of each string.

Since a suffix can have many fretboard groups and each fretboard group can have a different instrument, then a suffix can contain all possible fretboard grids for all instruments.

I've evolved into this approach: Fretboard group ID 1 of a suffix will be the most commonly used fretboard grids for each of the 12 chords of a particular suffix.  Then, I create a fretboard group for each interesting voicing (fingering), and I let Finale generate all 12 fretboard grids to represent moveable chords.  Then I name the fretboard group after the voicing. For instance, for suffix ID 1 (major chords), fretboard group ID 1 for ukulele I created the most common open chords.  Fretboard group ID 2 is moveable chords of the form 1-3-5-1 and I named it "1-3-5-1", fretboard group ID 3 is moveable chords of the form 5-1-3-1, and so on.

It's dissapointing that the fretboard group names aren't functional. It's also dissapointing that there isn't a way to see at once all the fretboard grids that are within Finale.  To manage the information, I keep a list in Microsoft Excel of the Suffix ID numbers, all of their fretboard group ID numbers, and the name I gave each fretboard group.  Then in Powerpoint I have images of all the grids grouped by suffix, fretboard group name and root note.