Changing keys in brass quintet

• May 20, 2018 - 07:09

Hello,
I'm using the brass quintet template and am unable to change the key for horn, trombone, and tuba. It requires all instruments be changed. I've tried dragging and dropping the key to the individual parts, but they all change. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Michele


Comments

Are you having different keys for a particular musical effect or are you changing keys to suit the different transpositions of the instruments? If the latter, then MuseScore has built-in ways to do it for you via the Concert Pitch button and having variants of horn, trombone tuba. The Brass Quintet template is set up for concert instruments. If you are writing for brass band players then use the Brass Band template and delete the instruments that you don't need.

In reply to by underquark

Thanks! I wasn't aware that I could change that around! I was working in a piece for my children and I to play for my husband's birthday (I have almost a complete brass quintet including me and two children that can cover more than one instrument). The piece had two measures of another song played in the background and needed the key change to allow for those two measures. I was just so frustrated about not being able to figure it out! Thank you!

It sounds like you are trying to manually transpose instruments. Don't do that you will make mess that takes time to fix. If there are instruments that do not exists that you are using, then ask. First, someone may know the name used by MuseScore or if necessary we can explain how to create a new instrument and adjust it's transposition.

In reply to by Michele King H…

If it's for all instruments, you shouldn't be touching Ctrl - that's only for experimental / polytonal music where you literally want to hear different keys at once. Most likely you are running into the fact that when changing keys, MuseScore expects you to add the concert key. So to change keys to E for trumpet and A for horns, you'd actually add D as the key. Then the right thing happens on all staves, no Ctrl required.

if you continue to have trouble, feel free to attach your score and then we can assist better.

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