Changing key signature only on one staff

• Apr 19, 2019 - 21:12

Hi, how do I change a key signature only on one staff. This piece is on D major. The key signature in the original score is empty (Horn in F). Is the score wrong? I included the screenshot of the score in MuseScore.

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Comments

If the Piece is in D-Major, it has 2 sharps. And a Horn in F in that has 3 sharps
If you want the Horn in F to show as C Major (no sharps of flats), the score needs to be in F major (one flat)

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

I don't really understand about brass instruments, I'm actually a pianist (played for quite a long time), and since I really liked orchestral music, I started transcribing it. I always do it by using the original score. I'm confused because a piece in D major, on a Horn in F, has 3 sharps, but on the score it has no key signature. Each instrument was all the same (has the same key signature as the one on the original score), except for the Horn in F. I attached a screenshot of the original score here.

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In reply to by IndominusRex

In orchestral pieces, it is traditional for instruments that started without valves (or a slide) to be written without a key signature. This includes trumpets, French horns and coronets. Most of these instruments are transposing, but there were varieties that made it easier to play the particular instrument in the key of the song. Yes, D horns existed prior to in introduction of valved to horns.

Interestingly, there are actually horns that still exist that can have crooks (pieces of tube to change the pitch of the instrument) to put the French Horns in whatever key the song originally called for.

One thing to watch out for in the case of horns, is that prior to about 100 years ago, all horn music written in the Bass clef was written an extra octave lower. There was a transition of several decades and it's normal for horn music today to be written in the bass clef with the same transposition as the treble clef. As a result, I use the bass clef with the 8 above it for horn music that this applies to when writing in MuseScore.

In reply to by IndominusRex

Tho composer was probably writing for an orchestra that had a celesta that could play the note. I'm no expert on celestas, but there are no doubt varieties of celestas with different ranges just as there are with other instruments like pianos, marimbas, bassoons... If you want to hear the note played, you can change sound fonts. I've found many situations where the default MuseScore sound fonts do not make sounds when the notes are outside of the "range" of the instrument, but other soundfonts play notes. It's all a matter of how the soundfont was made.

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