Alto G Ocarina not transposed as it should

• Jan 7, 2023 - 15:49

This is my first post here, so please kindly point me in the right direction if I have gone about this the wrong way. After about a decade with LilyPond and dabbling in Finale before that since 2000, now MuseScore 4 has just about made a convert of me.

For practicing purposes, I am recreating one of my previous scores I originally did in LilyPond. This one is for Alto G ocarina, which is a transposing instrument, but it appears that MuseScore has it configured to sound at concert pitch. In standard notation for this instrument, written middle C when played on this instrument corresponds to the G a perfect 5th above it on a piano.

I have been able to edit this instrument in this score using the settings below (in Staff/Part Properties) to behave correctly, but it would be nice if choosing this instrument during score setup would already be set up this way from the beginning. Or have I mixed up something?

Screenshot 2023-01-07 at 9.29.12 AM.png

Comments

• Jan 10, 2023 - 13:42

Just a bold shot: try to create an empty score with the correct instrument settings and save it as a user defined template (i.e. save it in the Templates folder defined in Preferences); be warned that the title is used as display name in the templates section.

Ultimately this should be fixed in the instruments.xml (see Preferences - Score for the folder, it's in the same folder as orders.xml) by adding

                  <transposeDiatonic>5</transposeDiatonic>
                  <transposeChromatic>7</transposeChromatic>

after the <pPitchRange> tag (somewhere after line ~1240]

But it appears that all of the transposing ocarinas are missing the transposition settings so it might be worth opening a formal issue for that.

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• Mar 20, 2025 - 22:30

All ocarinas other than Bass C are transposing, and Musescore has the range for the Bass C in the range of a Contrabass C, so that doesn't exactly help. I brought this up in 2022 and nothing happened then. But they're all written to have the same fingering across all ocarinas for reading the same music. Makes writing for and learning them so much easier.

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• Aug 24, 2025 - 00:40

Transposing it the octave is a given, I feel. The range of a 12 hole ocarina in C fits so nicely inside the treble clef when the lowest note is A below the staff.

I don't really know how I feel though about writing other key ocarinas as transposing instruments based on fingering. Some instruments do it this way, famously saxophones and clarinet. But some instruments do not, for example recorders, even if it would have made sense. Recorder players transpose at the octave, but they learn two sets of fingering, for C and for F instruments.

Reading based on fingering makes it easy to switch instruments without thinking of which note sounds as what, but it's a bit of a handicap to require special sheet music based on which ocarina you have with you. In a pinch, it's unlikely that the right transposition will be available. With an F ocarina, you could possibly get a hold of the french horn part, but G is such an unusual transposing pitch. I'm quite glad that I know how to play my G ocarinas based on concert pitch.

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• Aug 24, 2025 - 02:19

Oh, learning how to transpose at sight is important definitely, and I'm a rare strings player who can (I started learning music on viola. I now play many more instruments) but I think for part writing specifically, in my opinion, writing transposing parts is good. Much like how horn parts for orchestral pieces often come with "in F" parts for horns and similar for trumpets as well as the original, depending on player and publisher preference.

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