Slashes

There are two kinds of slashes, or hash marks, used to indicate improvised chording or comping. If you want to indicate ad lib comping, but you don’t require a specific rhythm, you can let Finale fill the measures with stemless slashes, spaced according to the time signature (four slashes in a measure, for example, at right in the figure below). If you want to indicate a specific rhythm of comping, Finale can turn the noteheads of any passage into slashes, still beamed and stemmed (at left in the figure below).

You can also create a passage of mixed normal notation and slash notation, and you can also turn any individual notehead into a slash. See Guitar Notation.

To create ‘comping’ slashes

1. Click the Staff Tool  , and select the measures in which you want slashes to appear. See Selecting music for some region-selecting shortcuts.
2. From the Staff Menu, choose Apply Staff Styles. The Apply Staff Styles dialog box appears.
3. Select Rhythmic or Slash Notation and click OK. Slash Notation hides all the music and replaces it with evenly-spaced hash marks. The number of hash marks is determined by the bottom number of the time signature. Rhythmic Notation turns the music into beamed and stemmed slashes, all on the middle line of the staff. See Staff styles for more information.
4. Click OK (or press return). Any music that was in the selected region is now hidden; to restore it, choose the measures again, choose Clear Staff Styles from the Staff Menu.

To add chords above slash notation, first add notes or rests in the staff, attach the desired chord symbols, and then apply the Slash Notation staff style to the region. For more information regarding adding chords without notes, see To enter a chord symbol when there’s no note below it. Note you can also create slash notation using the Rhythm Generator Plug-in.