If you are a Musescore user, this post will help you to understand the chord symbols and add them to your music sheet. If you follow the steps you will be able to insert any chord symbol in any score, and does not matter if it is a triad, dominant seventh, diminish, or augmented chord. It’s quick and easy.
If you are not a Musescore user, you can download and use it for free at the Musecore official Home Page: https://musescore.org/en. It is open-source, which means you do not have to pay to use it even commercially.
There are two ways to insert chords in Musescore. Once you have opened the software, you just need to choose a note or a rest, then go to the main menu and choose: Add, then Text, and finally chord symbol. It will open a small square where you can write.
Inserting chord symbol with Main Menu Bar
You can also use the shortcut Ctrl + K in Windows or Cmd + K in Mac and will have the same result.
After this step, you just need to write the letter that represents the chord. Let’s say you want to put the C major chord symbol. Just write c on the keyboard and hit Enter. You can write it in lowercase or uppercase. The software will automatically detect it. The moment you hit enter, you will listen to the chord. If you are not listening to it, you just need to change the configuration.
Changing the configuration to play chords
To change the configuration to play or disable playing, go to the main menu, click view and then Inspector. A shortcut for this is F8. Once the inspector is open you will find an option to turn on or off the chord notes playing. You have other options in the inspector for chord symbol like interpretation, voicing, and duration.
Inspector with an option to turn on or off the chord playing
Edit a Chord Symbol
In case you entered the wrong chord and want to edit it, just give a double click over the chord symbol and you are ready to edit it.
Use the keyboard letters A to G to insert the notes related to the chords. If you need to add a sharp or flat note, use # for sharp and the letter b for flat just after the letter. you can also work with double sharp or double flat. To do so, just write the symbol # or b twice. Like this: C## or Bbb.
Double Sharp and Double Flat
Major, Minor, Dominant Seventh and major Seventh Chords.
For major chords, you just need to write the letter and sharp or flat symbol (if needed). For minor chords, add m or the character minus (-). For dominant seventh, add 7 and for major seventh chords add maj7, ma7 or t7 (triangle 7).
Inverted Chords showing the Bass
In order to add a chord in a different inversion, showing the bass after a slash, just write it. Let’s say you want C major with bass in G (which is the fifth), you need to write C/G. Another example is C dominant seventh with bass in the seventh: C7/Bb.
Diminished and Half Diminished Chords
Diminished chords are formed by the tonic, minor third, diminish fifth and diminish seventh. You can insert the diminished symbol using the letter o on the keyboard. You also can insert dim after the chord name. As example we have C dim or C°.
Half diminished chords are very similar to diminished ones, but it does not have the diminished seventh, but the minor seventh instead. In order to insert half diminished chord in Musescore, you can use the number zero (0) in the keyboard after the note name. Another way is to use the alternative name which is a flat 5 and seventh ( b5 7). As an example, you can have D# b5 7 or D#ø.
Augmented Chords
An augmented chord has the fifth raised by a half step. You can write an augmented chord in Musescore by using the symbols +, #, or aug after the chord note name. A C augmented chord can be written as C+, C5#, C5+ or even C aug. In case you have a minor chord it will be like this?: Cm+, Cm(5+), Cm(aug) or Cm (5#).
Suspended Chords
A suspended chord changes the third in the chord by the fourth or the second. It can be called sus, sus2 or sus4. In general when it is just called sus, it refers to sus4. You can add a sus chord in Musescord just writing sus after the chord note name. As example we can have Dsus, Dsus4 or Dsus2.
Adding Tensions to the Chords
Tensions are added to seventh chords, so you can have, for example, Cmajor seventh with ninth and raised eleventh: C7 (9,#11). You can also use b9,#9, b13, and #13 after the seventh note. You can also use + and aug instead of # and – instead of b. However, if you only want to add a ninth over a major chord use add 9 instead. In this last case the chord does not have the seventh. Here are some examples: C7(b9), C7(9), Cadd9.
