42 rules

Text under and over the staff

How are lyrics, figured bass, Roman numerals and chord symbols set?

Text attached to music carries its own typography. Lyrics need syllable-accurate hyphenation, melisma extenders that stop where the melisma stops, and elisions where two syllables share a note. Figured bass, Roman numerals and chord symbols each have a vertical stacking order and an alignment they must hold against the notes above them.

Breaks the readingNeeds both
A melisma spanning a system break draws two extender segments, not one continuous line, and no hyphen
If the notes under one melisma syllable straddle a system break, the extender is drawn as two pieces: one running to the end of the first system, one resuming at the start of the next system to the melisma's actual last note. No hyphen is used, since a hyphen is reserved for a hyphenated word break, not a melisma — this distinguishes it from lyric-hyphen-system-break.
Breaks the readingNeeds both
A rest inside a word breaks the melisma extender and does not silently swallow the syllable or its hyphen
When a rest falls between two notes that would otherwise carry one continuous melisma, the extender line stops at the last sounding note before the rest and does not extend into or across the rest. If the interrupted word continues after the rest, the hyphen (or continuing extender) still applies at the syllable immediately before the rest, exactly as it would at any other syllable boundary — a rest is not itself a valid melisma-extender terminus with special silent-continuation behavior.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Accidentals attach to a specific figure number or replace it, using standard symbols
A sharp, flat, or natural before a figure number alters that specific chord tone; a diagonal slash through a numeral is the standard shorthand for a raised sixth, equivalent to writing 6 with a sharp. A lone accidental with no numeral implies the third.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
All lyric text in a system sits on one shared horizontal baseline per verse row
Every syllable in a given verse row aligns to the same baseline across the whole system, regardless of the notehead's staff position.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Case encodes chord quality: uppercase for major/augmented, lowercase for minor/diminished, with degree and augmented symbols
A roman numeral is written in uppercase for a major or augmented triad, lowercase for a minor or diminished triad, with a small superscript diminished-circle symbol appended for a diminished chord and a plus for augmented. This is the near-universal convention across harmony pedagogy that Dorico's Roman Numeral Analysis feature also implements.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Figured-bass numerals render in a plain upright style distinct from both the dynamics style and the expression style
Figured bass numerals are set upright (never italic) and in normal weight (never bold), visually distinct from both dynamics (bold italic) and expression text (italic).
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Figures align horizontally with the bass note's onset, not with a generic beat grid
Each figure column sits directly beneath the bass notehead it describes — if the bass moves (even a passing tone), the figure column moves with it; figures never float at a generic beat position disconnected from where the bass note actually falls.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Figures stack with the largest interval number on top, smallest on bottom
When more than one figure applies to a bass note, the numerals are stacked vertically in descending order top-to-bottom (a 6/4 chord shows 6 above 4; a seventh chord in third inversion shows 4 above 2; a full 7/5/3 shows 7, then 5, then 3). This mirrors the interval order from the bass upward.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Fingering numbers must not overlap slur curves, articulation marks, ties, or ornaments at the same note
When a note carries fingering AND a slur/articulation/tie/ornament, the engraver shifts one or the other slightly (typically the fingering, being smallest and most flexible) so neither glyph visually overlaps the other — Gradus's MelodyNote already supports articulation, ornament, tie, and graceNotes on the same note as fingering (confirmed in the type declaration), so this collision is a realistic, frequent case, not a rare edge condition.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Fingering numbers sit close to the notehead, on the side opposite the stem, never colliding with the stem or beam
A fingering number is placed immediately adjacent to its notehead — above the notehead when the stem points down, below or to the side when the stem points up — always on the side that keeps the number clear of the stem, beam, and any slur/articulation already occupying that side.
Breaks the readingNeeds both
Hyphenated word interrupted by a system break gets a hyphen at the end of the outgoing line only
When a hyphenated word splits across a system (line) break, a hyphen is placed at the end of the first system after the syllable, and the word continues at the start of the next system with no additional leading hyphen. Dorico and Finale both follow this — no double hyphen, and no hyphen orphaned alone at the start of a new system.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Inversion is shown with arabic figured-bass-style superscript figures attached to the numeral, using the same closed vocabulary as figured bass
A roman numeral's inversion is indicated with the identical abbreviated arabic-figure vocabulary as figured bass — 6, 6/4, 7, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2 — printed as a superscript stack immediately after the numeral.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Lyric baseline must clear the staff below it and any dynamic markings in the same vertical channel
The lyric row's vertical position must sit far enough below its staff that it never overlaps notes/ledger lines of a staff below it, nor collide with dynamic markings, which conventionally sit directly below the staff in the same territory lyrics would occupy.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Lyric syllabic position is not represented (model gap)
Every lyric syllable in MusicXML/engraving carries a syllabic role — single (whole word on one note), begin, middle, or end (a word split across notes) — which determines whether a hyphen is drawn after it. This is the load-bearing datum for every hyphenation, melisma, and system-break rule below; without it none of them are computable.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Lyric text is set in upright (roman) type, never italic, and in a distinct font/size from tempo and expression markings
Sung text is always upright roman type, never italic (italic is reserved for expression markings), and conventionally a slightly different size/weight from expression text so the eye can distinguish sung text from a performance instruction at a glance.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Melisma extender line is drawn only for a genuine multi-note melisma and stops exactly at the last note it covers
When one syllable is sung across several notes with no new syllable arriving, a plain horizontal extender line is drawn from just after the syllable text to just before (or under) the last note of the melisma — never shorter or longer than the actual span.
Breaks the readingNeeds both
Multiple verses stack in a fixed vertical order with verse numbers in the left margin
When a piece has more than one verse of text, each verse gets its own horizontal lyric row stacked directly beneath the previous verse (verse 1 closest to the staff, verse 2 below it, etc.), with a verse number printed identifying each row.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
No figured-bass notation representation exists in either Gradus data model (model gap)
Figured bass is a first-class notation element: stacked arabic numerals (with accidentals) below a bass note indicating the harmony above it, positioned at the bass note's x-coordinate, read top-to-bottom in a fixed convention.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
No roman-numeral harmonic-analysis representation exists in either Gradus data model (model gap)
Roman-numeral analysis attaches a harmonic label (e.g. V, ii°6, V7/V) below the bass staff at each harmony change, encoding scale-degree, chord quality via case, and inversion via arabic figures.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
One figured-bass line serves all upper parts realizing over it — figures aren't duplicated per upper voice
In continuo texture (one bass line, several upper voices realizing the harmony), the figures are authored and rendered exactly once, under the single bass staff — never repeated under each upper voice's staff.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
One syllable per note unless a melisma is explicit
The default word-underlay rule: each note receives exactly one syllable. A single syllable spans more than one note only as a deliberate melisma, marked by an extender line or a slur, never by silent omission.
Breaks the readingNeeds the rendered page
Roman numerals align under the beat/chord-change onset and sit at a consistent baseline below the system, in a fixed vertical order relative to figured bass/lyrics if all are present
Roman numeral labels are placed directly below the bass staff (or below any figured bass present) aligned horizontally to the note/beat where the harmony changes, on one shared baseline across the system. Gradus's recommended fixed below-staff stacking order, since no authority mandates a specific order: dynamics (closest to staff), then figured bass, then roman numerals, then lyrics (bottom-most) — documented here as a house-style decision.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Tempo markings render bold and upright; expression markings render italic — and Gradus already gets half of this right
A tempo indication (e.g. Allegro, quarter-note equals 120) is conventionally bold upright roman type; expressive/dynamic-adjacent text markings (dolce, cantabile, rit.) are italic — one of the most consistent typographic conventions across all major engraving authorities.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
The JSX fingering field is declared but never rendered — a real, currently-shipping defect, not a hypothetical
Any note field an author can legitimately set is expected to affect the render; a silently-ignored field is worse than no field at all, because authors have no way to discover the gap short of visually checking every lesson.
Breaks the readingCheckable from the score alone
Two syllables sung on a single note need an elision mark, not two stacked lyric strings
When two syllables of text are sung on one note (e.g. French/Italian text or an English contraction sung as one note), an elision mark — a small under-slur or undertie glyph — joins them, and they are not stacked vertically or run together without a marker.
Misleads the readerNeeds both
A long syllable widens its note's column instead of overflowing into neighbors
Note-to-note spacing in a vocal line must expand locally wherever a lyric syllable is wider than the duration-proportional spacing would otherwise allocate — lyric width is a spacing input, not an afterthought painted on top of fixed note spacing.
Misleads the readerCheckable from the score alone
Accidentals inside engraved text use proper glyphs, never ASCII 'b'/'#' substitutes
Wherever an accidental appears inside engraved text (figured-bass numerals, roman-numeral labels, chord symbols), it is set with the proper engraved accidental glyph (♭, ♯, ♮) or an approved text substitute used consistently by the house style — never the ASCII letters 'b' (for flat) or '#' (for sharp) left over from plain-text authoring, since 'b' is visually indistinguishable from the pitch name B and '#' is a different-width glyph than a true sharp.
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Applied/secondary chords are notated as a slash expression: numeral-of-tonicized-degree over numeral-of-the-key-it-tonicizes
A chord that functions as a dominant (or other applied function) of some scale degree other than the tonic is written as X/y where X is the applied chord's own roman numeral relative to the tonicized key and y is the roman numeral of the scale degree being tonicized (e.g. V/V, vii°7/vi).
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Chord symbols sit above the staff, beat-aligned, never in the below-staff text stack
Chord symbols (distinct from roman-numeral analysis) are placed above the staff, left-aligned to the beat where the harmony begins, never sharing the below-staff territory used by dynamics, figured bass, roman numerals, or lyrics.
Misleads the readerCheckable from the score alone
Chord-symbol quality and extensions use the closed standard abbreviation set
Chord-symbol quality/extension text uses the closed standard set: maj7 (or a triangle glyph), m7 or -7 (minor seventh), m7b5 (or a half-diminished circle-with-slash glyph), dim7 (or a diminished-circle glyph), aug or + (augmented), sus4/sus2, and altered/added extensions written as 7#9, 7b13, 9, 11, 13, etc. Slash-bass inversions are written as a single root/bass unit (e.g. C/E), never as two stacked symbols. Spelled-out words ('Major seven', 'flat five') and an ambiguous bare lowercase 'm' meant to signal major are nonstandard.
Misleads the readerCheckable from the score alone
Figure combinations must match the closed set of standard abbreviations and their implied chord
Figured bass uses a small fixed vocabulary. The canonical closed set (sorted-descending numeral tuple -> implied chord/inversion) is: [] (no figures) -> root-position triad (5/3 implied); [6] -> first-inversion triad; [6,4] -> second-inversion triad; [7] or [7,5,3] -> root-position seventh; [6,5] -> first-inversion seventh; [4,3] -> second-inversion seventh; [4,2] or [2] -> third-inversion seventh. Suspension figures are a separate voice-leading category, not chord-quality tuples: 4-3, 7-6, 9-8, and 2-3 (bass suspension) denote a dissonance resolving to the adjacent consonant figure.
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Fingering numbers in a chord stack in the same pitch order as the notes — bottom finger number for the bottom note, top for the top
When a chord has fingering marked on more than one note, the fingering numbers are stacked vertically in the same low-to-high order as the pitches themselves, each number aligned with its own notehead's height, not bunched at one height or reordered.
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Hyphens between syllables use a single centered hyphen glyph, not double dashes
The connecting mark between syllables of one word is a single short hyphen, centered in the horizontal gap between the two syllables' lyric columns — not a full-width dash, not a double hyphen, and not omitted when the gap is wide. Some house styles print a run of short hyphens across a very wide gap (Finale and Dorico both support this), but never a plain en/em dash.
Misleads the readerCheckable from the score alone
Hyphens must fall at true syllable boundaries
Word underlay splits multi-syllable words only at linguistically correct syllable boundaries (dictionary/orthographic syllabification), never at arbitrary letter counts. Hyphens between syllables of one word are drawn centered in the gap between the two noteheads' lyric columns.
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In SATB short score, shared lyric text prints once and aligns across all voice parts singing the same words
When multiple voice parts on the same staff sing identical text at the same rhythmic position, the lyric line is shared/centered relative to the combined noteheads at that beat, not repeated once per voice.
Misleads the readerCheckable from the score alone
Neapolitan and augmented-sixth chords use fixed symbolic labels, not the generic degree+quality+inversion formula
Certain altered chords are conventionally labeled with fixed symbolic abbreviations rather than a derived scale-degree numeral: the Neapolitan sixth as N6 (or ♭II6), and the augmented-sixth chords as It+6, Fr+6, Ger+6 (Italian/French/German). These labels are drawn from a small closed set, not computed from the generic degree+quality+inversion formula used for ordinary diatonic and applied chords.
Misleads the readerNeeds the rendered page
Short syllables center under the notehead; long syllables anchor left to the notehead and let the column widen rightward
A syllable narrower than the note's allotted horizontal space is centered under the notehead. A syllable wider than the available space is left-aligned so its first letter starts under (or very near) the notehead, and the note spacing widens rather than letting the text bleed backward into the previous note's space.
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Vocal beaming groups by melisma/syllable, not by the instrumental time-signature beaming default
In traditional vocal notation, notes are beamed together only when they share one syllable (a melisma); a syllable change breaks the beam even mid-beat, and single-syllable notes revert to flags rather than beaming across a syllable boundary the way an instrumental line would beam across a whole beat. Modern practice is genuinely split: Gould documents the traditional vocal convention as still standard for choral/hymnal engraving, while Dorico's default (and much contemporary vocal-score engraving) beams vocal lines the same as instrumental lines unless 'melisma beaming' is explicitly turned on.
Falls short of best practiceCheckable from the score alone
A continuation (extension) line under a sustained figure shows the harmony holding while the bass note itself may repeat or tie
When one figure (or set of figures) applies across more than one bass note duration without change, a horizontal continuation line is drawn from the figure to the point where the harmony changes, rather than re-printing the identical figure at every note.
Falls short of best practiceCheckable from the score alone
A modulating/tonicized passage gets a bracket spanning its roman numerals, labeled with the new key
When analysis identifies an extended tonicization or modulation (not just a single applied chord), a horizontal bracket is drawn spanning the roman numerals of the affected passage, with the new key relative to the home key printed at the bracket.
Falls short of best practiceCheckable from the score alone
Lyric capitalization follows sentence-level rules, not per-note capitalization; punctuation attaches to the syllable it belongs to
Only the first word of a line/phrase and proper nouns are capitalized; punctuation is placed immediately after the syllable that ends the clause, without a preceding space, and does not itself receive a hyphen.
Falls short of best practiceCheckable from the score alone
String-instrument string numbers use circled numerals, distinct from finger numbers
For string instruments, the string being played is notated with a circle around the numeral, visually distinct from a bare numeral indicating left-hand finger — conflating the two is a real source of performer confusion the convention specifically guards against.

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A melisma spanning a system break draws two extender segments, not one continuous line, and no hyphen

A rest inside a word breaks the melisma extender and does not silently swallow the syllable or its hyphen

Accidentals attach to a specific figure number or replace it, using standard symbols

All lyric text in a system sits on one shared horizontal baseline per verse row

Case encodes chord quality: uppercase for major/augmented, lowercase for minor/diminished, with degree and augmented symbols

Figured-bass numerals render in a plain upright style distinct from both the dynamics style and the expression style

Figures align horizontally with the bass note's onset, not with a generic beat grid

Figures stack with the largest interval number on top, smallest on bottom

Fingering numbers must not overlap slur curves, articulation marks, ties, or ornaments at the same note

Fingering numbers sit close to the notehead, on the side opposite the stem, never colliding with the stem or beam

Hyphenated word interrupted by a system break gets a hyphen at the end of the outgoing line only

Inversion is shown with arabic figured-bass-style superscript figures attached to the numeral, using the same closed vocabulary as figured bass

Lyric baseline must clear the staff below it and any dynamic markings in the same vertical channel

Lyric syllabic position is not represented (model gap)

Lyric text is set in upright (roman) type, never italic, and in a distinct font/size from tempo and expression markings

Melisma extender line is drawn only for a genuine multi-note melisma and stops exactly at the last note it covers

Multiple verses stack in a fixed vertical order with verse numbers in the left margin

No figured-bass notation representation exists in either Gradus data model (model gap)

No roman-numeral harmonic-analysis representation exists in either Gradus data model (model gap)

One figured-bass line serves all upper parts realizing over it — figures aren't duplicated per upper voice

One syllable per note unless a melisma is explicit

Roman numerals align under the beat/chord-change onset and sit at a consistent baseline below the system, in a fixed vertical order relative to figured bass/lyrics if all are present

Tempo markings render bold and upright; expression markings render italic — and Gradus already gets half of this right

The JSX fingering field is declared but never rendered — a real, currently-shipping defect, not a hypothetical

Two syllables sung on a single note need an elision mark, not two stacked lyric strings

A long syllable widens its note's column instead of overflowing into neighbors

Accidentals inside engraved text use proper glyphs, never ASCII 'b'/'#' substitutes

Applied/secondary chords are notated as a slash expression: numeral-of-tonicized-degree over numeral-of-the-key-it-tonicizes

Chord symbols sit above the staff, beat-aligned, never in the below-staff text stack

Chord-symbol quality and extensions use the closed standard abbreviation set

Figure combinations must match the closed set of standard abbreviations and their implied chord

Fingering numbers in a chord stack in the same pitch order as the notes — bottom finger number for the bottom note, top for the top

Hyphens between syllables use a single centered hyphen glyph, not double dashes

Hyphens must fall at true syllable boundaries

In SATB short score, shared lyric text prints once and aligns across all voice parts singing the same words

Neapolitan and augmented-sixth chords use fixed symbolic labels, not the generic degree+quality+inversion formula

Short syllables center under the notehead; long syllables anchor left to the notehead and let the column widen rightward

Vocal beaming groups by melisma/syllable, not by the instrumental time-signature beaming default

A continuation (extension) line under a sustained figure shows the harmony holding while the bass note itself may repeat or tie

A modulating/tonicized passage gets a bracket spanning its roman numerals, labeled with the new key

Lyric capitalization follows sentence-level rules, not per-note capitalization; punctuation attaches to the syllable it belongs to

String-instrument string numbers use circled numerals, distinct from finger numbers