musescore / musescore/MuseScore
Support playing chord symbols *only* while editing
@avvvvve is already working on this.
Since Jul 28, 2026.
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Description
Your idea
Make it possible to have chord symbols play when clicked on, but not during playback.
Problem to be solved
There is "Play chord when editing" in Preferences > Note input.
There is "Play chord symbols" under the playback settings menu.
So you can have:
- chords played during playback, and editing
- chords played during playback, but not during editing
Whereas what I actually want is to play them only during editing, not during playback.
Why? Because I use the chord symbols as a kind of annotation for myself - they don't appear on the final score. It's useful to be able to click on them to hear that the chord does match the way I have voiced it, but I never want to hear it during playback.
It has occurred to me while writing this that there is a viable workaround: I can select all chord symbols and mark them all as "Do not play", while leaving these two settings enabled. But I suspect my use case is common enough that it would be useful to other people as well.
(Other workarounds I tried, like setting very quiet dynamics, or muting in the mixer control, did not work - that makes the sound also very quiet/muted during editing.)
Prior art
No response
Additional context
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Checklist
- This request follows the guidelines for reporting issues
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