Copy and paste including instrument change results in spurious octave shift.

• Apr 23, 2018 - 18:12

Being a clarinettist, I often come across parts with instrument changes. MuseScore generally handles these well, but... if I copy and paste a section that includes an instrument change, some notes are shifted by an octave. The attached examples demonstrate the problem.

  1. Test instrument change 01: The score was set up by selecting Bb clarinet as the instrument. I entered a scale of G major (A major for Bb clarinet) and then an instrument change to A clarinet. I added the G major key signature again so that the key signature for the A clarinet is correctly shown as Bb major and then entered another G major (Bb major for A clarinet.

  2. Test instrument change 02: I added a double bar and an instrument change back to Bb clarinet. Then I added a G major key signature so that the key signature for Bb clarinet is correctly shown as A Major.

  3. Test instrument change 03: I copied bars 1 to 6 and pasted them at bar 7 (i.e. just after the instrument change “Muta in B”). Note:
    a) bars 9 and 10 are correctly shown and pitched.
    b) The instrument change “Muta in A” is not pasted.
    c) The notes in bars 13 and 14 are shown at the written pitch appropriate to an A clarinet but the second note is an octave too low.
    d) If the score is played, the notes in bar 13 and 14 sound at the written pitch as if played on a Bb clarinet, i.e. a semitone higher than they should sound if played on an A clarinet.

  4. Test instrument change 04: I copied the instrument change in bar 3 and pasted it into bar 11. Note:
    e) The written pitch of the notes has not changed except for the second note in bar 13 which is shifted back to the correct octave.
    f) If the score is played, the pitch of the notes in bars 13 and 14 is now what you would expect if played on an A clarinet.

  5. Test instrument change 05: The score is tidied up by adding a double bar and entering another G major key signature in bar 11.

I also tried copying bars 7 – 14 and pasting them at bar 15. Again, the instrument changes did not get pasted, but the written pitches were shown correctly for the A clarinet and there was no octave shift.

It looks like the octave shift problem occurs only when the copied section includes the first instrument change. There also seems to be an inconsistency in the pasted pitches.

Also it would be nicer if the instrument change indications showed up after the copy & paste operation.


Comments

Yeah, I can confirm. I think the copy/paste code doesn't check to see if transposition changed within the selection but instead processes the whole passage using the initial transposition. So you end up with notes entered with one transposition but displaying in measure using a different transposition. The copy/paste code needs to be enhanced here. Would you mind submitting a formal bug report to the issue tracker (Help / Report a Bug, from within MuseScore)?

I doubt it's related to the fix for the split staff command, btw.

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