Building chords by stacking intervals

Hold Alt and press a number to add a note that interval above the current one, turning it into a chord. Alt+3 adds a third, Alt+5 a fifth, Alt+8 the octave. These work on any palette tab, so you don’t need to be on the Note palette first.

Stacking onto one note

Select a note and press Alt+3: it becomes a two-note chord. The highlight moves to the note you just added, so pressing Alt+3 again stacks a third above that — three presses from a single note build a diatonic seventh chord.

• Alt+2 — second
• Alt+3 — third
• Alt+4 — fourth
• Alt+5 — fifth
• Alt+6 — sixth
• Alt+7 — seventh
• Alt+8 — octave

On a chord, the interval is measured from whichever notehead is highlighted, so you can click an inner note of a chord and stack from there.

Stacking across a selection

With a range selected, Alt+3 adds a third to every note and chord in it at once — a quick way to harmonise a passage in parallel. Each event is measured from its own top note, so pressing Alt+3 again grows every chord upward by another third rather than re-stacking the same note.

The selection stays where it was afterwards, so you can keep pressing to build taller chords across the whole passage. The whole batch is one action: a single Ctrl+Z undoes it.

Intervals follow the key signature

The interval is diatonic — it takes its accidental from the key signature rather than always being major or minor. A third above D is F in C major, but F♯ in G major. Stacking a third across a passage therefore gives a mix of major and minor thirds, matching the scale.

To make a stacked note chromatic, apply an accidental to it afterwards with the usual accidental keys.

If a selection spans a key change, each note is spelled using the key in force where it sits.

Tips

• Stacking always goes upward, from the reference note.
• Alt+1 does nothing — a unison would add a note that’s already there. The same applies to any interval landing on a pitch the chord already contains; on a single note the highlight staying put is the sign nothing was added.
• Stacking needs a note or chord selected. A rest is left alone, including rests inside a range selection.
• On tablature and percussion staves the number keys mean fret numbers and drum slots, so Alt+number doesn’t stack there. In a range covering both kinds of staff, the pitched staves are stacked and the others are left as they are.
• With a Bottom of chord filter active, stacking measures from each chord’s lowest note instead of its top — see Narrowing what a selection affects.
• To move existing notes by an interval rather than adding new ones, see Transposing a selection.