Roman Numeral Analysis: How to add key declaration?

• Sep 9, 2020 - 03:45

Take this image from Wikipedia, for example: Example 1
Notice that at the start of the example, the key of C major is declared with C:.

In the Roman Numeral Analysis tool, the : key is disabled, so including this part of an analysis is more difficult. As a feature, I would suggest having similar behavior to colons in lyric text (to mark verse numbers), but that is not the point of this post. In the meantime, I would like to know if there is a workaround that would allow me to analytically declare a key that doesn't push the rest of the analysis out of the way.

I have tried adding a lyric on the first note, but I can't seem to get it to where it should be without moving everything else out of place.

Thanks in advance for your help!


Comments

As a workaround I'd currently go for a Staff Text. It'll show above the staff by default, but you can flip it (use 'X' or the inspector) and them move it horizontally as required.

The issue with the colon is that on most keyboards it is Shift+semicolon, which is the shortcut for navigating backwards one beat. So, you could either change that shortcut in Edit / Preferences / Shortcuts, or enter the colon using Ctrl+Colon (e.g., as Ctrl+Shift+semicolon), which does work apparently. You can also enter colon or any other special character using the Special Characters dialog - press F2 while editing text to display it.

However, one thing not ideal about entering the key info this way is that it won't be aligned properly. The "C:" really should be moved to the left as shown above. So I would enter it as a separate element, then move it to the left, and potentially disable autoplace if you want it to overlap the barline or previous measure in situations where there isn't a time signature to tuck in under as there is here.

To use a colon ( : ) in a Roman numeral, simply input it in any other text element and cut-paste it at the desired location in a given Roman numeral.

Do you still have an unanswered question? Please log in first to post your question.