Issue with Click-and-Drag Transposition in an Atonal Key Signature

• Sep 21, 2021 - 06:15

Today I came across a quirk with click-and drag transposition, and I'm wondering if I have something wrong in my settings, or if this is something that should maybe be addressed.

Some background information:
MuseScore Version: 3.6.2
Operating System: Arch Linux
Packaging: Community Repository

I found that, when working in an atonal key signature, selecting a passage and dragging up and down to transpose it results in it being transposed diatonically, as if it were in C Major. When working with atonal music, this often results in the exact contour of the melody being lost, and one would expect any transposition to be chromatic.

The attached "Sample.mscz" demonstrates this: mm. 1-2 give a music sample; mm. 3-10 give various click-and-drag transpositions of the sample as described; and mm. 11-12 demonstrate an example of chromatic transposition, the expected behavior, achieved by using the arrow keys.

I do know that, when using the arrow keys, as expected, music transposes chromatically. Is there any setting to make click-and-drag transposition behave similarly? According to the handbook (https://musescore.org/en/handbook/handbook-musescore-1/notation/transpo…) this behavior seems to be deliberate, but I may be missing something. Any help would be appreciated!

Attachment Size
Sample.mscz 10.07 KB

Comments

Click&drag is not really a recommended way of transposing anything in any key, really. It was implemented as a way of changing pitch of single notes by mouse alone, and it does happen to also do something with respect to range selections, but it's a diatonic transposition only, and thus won't necessarily retain what you'd want to retain. The supported way to do actual tranposition would be the arrow keys or Tools / Transpose or the transpose up/down commands for which you can define keyboard shortcus in Edit / Preferences / Shortcuts.

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