Key Signature
This is probably a music question rather than a Musescore question, but here goes anyway !
I have a hard copy alto and tenor saxophone parts which I want to type into Musescore to modify and rearrange. The parts are written in the keys of F# major and B major respectively and I want to work in those instrument keys rather than in concert.
So I started a new score in Musescore, selected the instruments, alto sax first then tenor sax, then selected the key signature as concert A. To my surprise the score appears as I would expect in the key of B for the tenor sax part, but in the key of Gb for the alto sax part. Now OK, I can simply drag and drop an F# key signature into the alto sax part to change it, but I'm wondering why Musescore makes this enharmonic key signature change for the alto sax. Surely a key signature of concert A should become F# for an Eb transposing instrument, not Gb.
I'd be interested in comments of this.
Comments
Musically, there is a good reason to use enharmonic spellings of keys when transposing in some cases. For example, if your piece was in B major (convert key), you certainly wouldn't want the alto part to come out in G# - you'd want it respelled as Ab. The only question here us whether this enharmonic respelling was appropriate in your case. I'm guess the algorithm says, choose the key with the smallest number of alterations, and prefer flats over sharps in case of time. That's not bad as a default, but I'd expect to see a way to override this - an option either in the staff properties or global as part of the general style to say whether keys should be simplified in this way or not.
In reply to Musically, there is a good by Marc Sabatella
That's very interesting thanks. I hadn't thought of it in terms of the algorithm and your guess at how it operates makes perfect sense and is almost certainly right.
But as you imply, it's a shame it didn't occur to the person who designed the algorithm to think
a.) Give them an override
and more obviously................
b.) If there are multiple transposing instruments on the same score then put them all in either sharps or flats but don't mix them up.
In reply to That's very interesting by Peter B
Well, the beauty of open-source software is that "the folks who wrote those algorithms are never very far away!"
(No, I'm not one. Not yet, anyway...)
I'm sure that The Implementors (Ommmmm....) would find it quite useful if you could elaborate on your idea and, in this thread, flesh it out into something that could be a specification for a change-request that could be considered and perhaps implemented.
"Details, details..." When you say, "give them an override," how might such an override work? When you say, "multiple transposing instruments on the same score," and "don't mix them up," can you give a specific example ... (a) of such a situation; and (b) of what in that situation you think is "right," and (c) of what, per contra, in that same situation, you would consider to be "wrong?" ("Why or why not?")
Another contrasting thought that's always going to pop up in a code-developer's mind is ... "when I implement this, what might I unintentionally break?" Every change has an up-side and a down-side. There's always a calculated risk in changing a piece of software, no matter how "slight" the change might appear to be, and developers are always managing those risks.
Software development's the same the world around ... but at least here there's no marketing department! ;-)
In reply to Well, the beauty of by mrobinson
My point is quite simple really. Let's say I'm working on a score for my saxophone quartet which comprises Bb soprano, two Eb altos and a Bb tenor. I'm working in Musescore in a key signature of concert A.
OK, I've finished the score and I now want to print the parts in the transposing instruments' key signatures. So I release the 'concert pitch' tab in Musescore and what happens? It puts the Soprano and tenor saxes in the key of B, 5#s, and the two altos in the key of Gb, 6bs. So as suggested above, the algorithm seems to have selected B for the tenor and sop because it has less changes than Cb, but why Gb for the altos I don't know because it has the same number of changes as F#, 6#s. In any event, it's neither good practice nor the convention as far as I'm aware to have the key signatures in an ensemble score spelled differently.
So all I'm suggesting is that on the initial key signature selection page, either to provide a tab which says 'spell all key signatures the same, (with the least overall number of changes across the piece)', or a tab which says 'spell key singatures in #. spell key sigatures in b'
I'm not sure that I can add any more detail than this, so I hope it helps to clarify my original post.
PS...............Actually, as an afterthought, I suppose a code developer would be perfectly justified in thinking "Why should I do all that extra work for only six affected key signatures, Db, C#, Gb and F#, Cb and B. They can just drag and drop the key signatures if they want to" That'd be fair enough I suppose.
In reply to My point is quite simple by Peter B
I think your point is clear enough, and at this point, the next step should be submitting a feature request to the Issue Tracker (see menu at right). Posting here first is a good idea, to get feedback on the suggestion, and to be sure the feature doesn't already exist. But then get it i to the tracker. I'd recommend the simplest approach - an otpion somewhere to control if you want your key signatures simplified on transposition or not. Either global, or maybe per staff, or per key signature.
In reply to I think your point is clear by Marc Sabatella
Thanks, yes I'll do that. I'm not sure that I quite understand your suggestion about 'simplifying' key signatures on transpositon though. It's not really about simplifying them, it's about presenting them with the same spelling if that's the right term, but I'll try as you suggest to make the post in the Issue Tracker as broad as possible whilst still getting the point across.
In reply to Thanks, yes I'll do that. by Peter B
Sorry, I could have been more clear. Simplifying is the process of taking a key signature like C# major - 7 sharps - and respelling it is Db major - 5 flats. This is what MuseScore is doing by default, and that's why your key signatures are being respelled. With the simplifying feature turned off, you would get the key signatures you wanted. So that's what you want - an option to turn off the simplification that is currently performed automatically.