The Indexing page appears in the Library Options property window. It also appears in various areas of Default Options, and optionally in the New Library process.
In addition to the controls shown below, there are extra buttons which are common to all property windows.
It defines a series of parameters which affect the way matching chords are found for chordshapes, and how chordshapes are indexed in the Library List within the Library View.
These settings vary significantly between different playing levels, and allow you to control the simplicity or completeness of the music theory that ChordWizard uses in all operations.
Controls
Find
This dropdown list specifies how many matching chords ChordWizard will try to find when analyzing chordshapes for matching and searching operations.
These are the matching chords which are displayed in the Matching Chord List within Design View.
The simplest option is to choose Best Chord Only, which will find only one chord for each chordshape. However, this can result in an incomplete picture.
For example, a chordshape containing the notes A-C-E-G is an exact match for both C6 and Am7. Restricting matching to the Best Chord Only will result in only one of these being identified.
You can allow ChordWizard to find up to the Best 7 Chords for each chordshape. If more than one matching chord is found, they are ranked according to their level of exactness (ie. how many missing notes, see below) and how well they represent the inversion of notes that appears in the chordshape.
Missing
This dropdown list specifies how many notes of a matching chord may be missing in the chordshape to which it is attached.
The degrees of chord types are defined as optional or required. Required degrees must always be present in matching chords, but this setting allows you to specify how many of the optional degrees may be absent.
For example, the chordshape x3231x on guitar in standard tuning is easy to play and makes a good sound, but does not match exactly with any of the standard chord types.
In fact, it produces the sound of a C7 chord, but with the note G (or degree 5) missing. ChordWizard would not tell you this unless you select at least Up to 1 Degrees for this setting.
You can allow ChordWizard to show matching chords with Up to 4 Degrees missing. These appear in the Matching Chord List in Design View with smaller, differently colored text to show they are not exact matches.
Notes
This dropdown list specifies how you want notes to be named that are part of chords or scales. Root notes, or notes which are not part of chords or scales are named according to the default note names you have specified in the General page of the Workspace Options.
However, when naming notes which are part of a chord or scale, there are guidelines which state how notes should be named. You can adjust the extent to which these guidelines are enforced, with the following options:
Strict Precision - shows note names in full detail, even where double sharps and flats are used or where equivalent notes without accidentals are possible.
Single Symbol - as for Strict Precision, but note names are adjusted to remove double sharps and flats.
Simplified - as for Single Symbol, but note names are adjusted to remove accidentals where equivalent notes without accidentals are possible.
Default Names - the preferred names selected in Default Names are used regardless of the context.
To illustrate these options, consider the naming of the notes formed by the degrees of the chord F#maj7#5. The notes of the F# Major scale are F#-G#-A#-B-C#-D#-E#.
| maj7#5 | 1 | 3 | #5 | 7 |
| Strict Precision | F# | A# | C## | E# |
| Single Symbol | F# | A# | D | E# |
| Simplified | F# | A# | D | F |
| Default Names | F# | Bb | D | F |
Use Slash Chord Notation
A common convention you may often see in sheet music is to put the bass note of a chord after the chord name, with a slash to separate it.
For example, the expression Cmaj/G means a Cmaj chord whose lowest pitched (bass) note is G, as opposed to C, which would be the bass note for the Cmaj chord in standard inversion.
You can choose to Use Slash Chord Notation or not, throughout all operations in ChordWizard where matching chords are shown.
The bass note will only be shown where it is different to the root note of the chord.
This is related to, but separate from, the Bass Chord Note criteria of the filter, which can be used for finding chordshapes having a particular bass note.
This filter criteria is still available and will still work regardless of whether you choose to Use Slash Chord Notation for display.
Default Sort Order
This option specifies what to use as the Default Sort Order for sorting chordshapes in the library and when searching for new chordshapes.
It can be either of Sort by Chordshape Digits or Sort by Hand Position. These options are explained in detail in Sorting.
The default sort order is not so obvious in the Library List when you have chosen to Group by Matching Chords (see below). However it always determines the chordshape sequence when searching.
Group by Matching Chords
Determines whether chordshapes in the Library List are grouped by their matching chords.
In general, this is recommended to keep chordshapes making the same chord together. Groups in the Library List are separated with a horizontal line between each group.
There are two different types of grouping:
Chord Types within Root Notes - Keeps groups of the same root note together, and repeats for each root note. For example: Cmaj, Cm, C7, ... C#maj, C#m, C#7, ...
Root Notes within Chord Types - Keeps groups of the same chord type together, and repeats for each chord type. For example: Cmaj, C#maj, Dmaj, ... Cm, C#m, Dm, ...
This same grouping sequence will be used for all reports, unless you override it in the Groups page of Printing Options.
Sort Within Groups
Specifies whether the Default Sort Order is used to sort chordshapes within the groups of the Library List.
In general, it is better to sort Closest Matches First, so that within each group, the best chordshapes for playing the chord appear towards the top of the list.
Reset
The Reset button resets the Indexing settings back to those that are defined in Default Options. You will first need to select the playing level to reset to, since there is a separate set of Indexing settings for each playing level within Default Options.
See Also
