Messy transpose from F to F#

• Dec 8, 2013 - 01:29

This isn't a big problem for me, but if it's a bug and it's not a known bug, the developers might like to know about it.

I've scored a pretty simple pop song, four staves, one line per staff. it's in the key of F. The notation looks fine, it plays okay. When I choose Notes-->Transpose --> Transpose All --> Transpose by key --> Up and try to change the key to F# Major, the notation gets all crazy. Six flats in the key signature, which is G flat, if I'm not mistaken. Almost every note in the score has a sharp accidental. There may be some double sharps, I didn't look very carefully. The score seems to play normally, and in the correct key.

If I try to transpose down to F# the same thing happens, though all the notes are an octave lower.

Transposing up to G flat major seems to work normally. If I had a serious need for the notation to work right, this workaround would have succeeded.


Comments

As a work around you could drag the proper key sig from the pallet. That would probably clear up most of the problems. If it still needs correction. you could select all, lower them a tone or semi-tone and then raise them back to the proper pitch. I expect virtually all will be correct then.

In reply to by xavierjazz

Good ideas. Actually, I tried them.

The basic problem when this occurs -- The key signature is G flat, but the notes are scored as F sharp, so every note has an accidental. B Flats appear as A sharps, and so on.

After Notes-->Transpose… from F up to F#, I tried lowering all notes by a semi-tone and then raising them back to the proper pitch. That didn't work. The notation still displays A sharps instead of B flats, and so on.

Then I tried raising all notes a semi-tone and raising them back to the proper pitch. That causes the notation to display correctly in G flat, though the F sharp was the original intention. That doesn't cause a problem for me -- I just wanted to play the song in a higher key. It would cause a problem for someone who wants to print the notation.

Dragging the correct key signature from the pallet -- six sharps, instead of six flats, does cause the notation to display correctly.

I don't know if this is a known bug, or if it's already fixed in 2.0, so I don't know if my report is helpful or not. I suppose the beta testers might want to check to see if similar problems occur in 2.0.

FWIW, a similar problem occurs when transposing from the key of C to C sharp. The key signature indicates D flat, but the notes are rendered as C sharp. I didn't investigate all the other possibilities. From C major up to D major works okay.

I also tried from C major up to B major. That got weird. The three treble clef staffs were transposed correctly, but the key signature in the bass clef staff has seven flats instead of five sharps, with corresponding accidentals for all the notes on that staff.

In reply to by xavierjazz

Is it my responsibility to add this sort of thing to the issue tracker? I don't really know how, and I fear I would just cause confusion and annoyance.

It looks like there are some known issues with transposing, so I don't know if my comments above would add any information. Can someone please clarify, in case I run across other "issues," also known as bugs?

I'm curious -- Are issues like this being corrected in 1.3? Or is all the effort being invested in 2.0?

In reply to by Timborino

It would be *nice* if you could download a nightly build of 2.0 and see if you can reproduce a problem there, and if so, yes, submit to the issue tracker. It's not particularly difficult - just use Help / Report a bug (in 2.0), then enter the info as directed (project MuseScore, component code, category bug report, leave unassigned and normal priority). Attach the file that reproduces the problem and step by step instructions to reproduce.

But at the very least, attaching the file and step by step instructions here would allow one of us who already has a 2.0 build installed to see if it's still an issue. I don't see any problems transposing my own scores from F to F# in 2.0, but your score might be unique in some way.

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