Notating an unusual scale
Not so much a musescore question as a notation question - if that is inappropriate for here please forgive. I am working on a quasi Islamic piece that uses the scale:
A, Bb, C#, D, E, F, G, A
It is for singing and guitar and the chords it uses are A maj, Bb maj, Gmin all of which fit perfectly in the scale above as I, II, VII.
I am now trying to notate a piano part and am wondering how I should deal with a key signature. Obviously I can do it with no key signature at all but are there other common ways of working with unusual scales like this? I bears a close resemblance to a Dmin scale but that seems to me to be somewhat misleading since the tonic as actually A.
Thanks for any replies. I just love Musescore, what an amazing program.
Andrew
If you are interested you can (just about) hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyD0-6ye4Lk
Comments
You really have 2 choice of key signatures, 1 flat or nothing. 1 flat is the only common key signature you could use to avoid excessive accidentals, but no key signature seems to make more sense in the context. I would seriously consider using the 1 flat key for writing the music and removing it when I'm finished.
see https://musescore.org/en/node/148526
also there is another discussion, I don't remember where,
but see https://musescore.org/en/handbook/inspector-and-object-properties#chord
first select all the B and tune them to Bb
If the music is for Western musicians not accustomed to such scales, then I would agree, one flat or nothing. If it's for people who are accustomed to using that scale *and* to reading music that uses the key signature that would actually seem most natural for it - one flat and one sharp - then by all means, use the custom key signature feature to set that up. But most Western musicians will not be able to deal with that well. And custom key signatures do require extra effort to use.
I would use one flat and mark the C#s.
The scale is essentially the 5th mode of D harmonic minor anyway.
Thank you to all the people who replied, what a wonderful forum this is as I have found many times before. Yes I think the Bb key signature is the way I will go.
Andrew
In reply to Thank you to all the people by Andrew Rashid
Hello.
It is "F" key signature that has one flat, Bb. :)
If you can find a way to convert to a harmonic minor, thats what you need.
D harmonic minor shifted to 5th position.
Just to mention it in case you might need more spezialized features for unusual key signatures with playback:
http://www.mus2.com.tr/en/