Bug report concerning changing instruments in different clefs
I have had this problem on several projects, as I often transcribe vocal music to brass music, starting with a vocal score. The problem I had as late as yesterday was that if I take a tenor line (in this case treble clef with the 8 under it) and there is a Bb (could also be any B) and change the instrument to trombone, all of the Bs had the stems going up instead of down. All the As and Cs and everything else was fine. I know a B in treble clef can have its stem go either way depending on the context, but when that note becomes a top line B in bass clef, it should conform to the conventions of that clef, I would think. I'm thinking this may be a bug, and if it could be squashed, it was save me time with all the "x" commands.
I had another odd behavior when I pasted a bass trombone line into a new tuba part and then walked it down an octave. It was all fine, except the Ebs all became D#s and I had to "J" them all. There were one or two random other notes that changed enharmonically incorrectly.
Thanks for your help. This community is amazing and Musescore just gets better and better. The output now is SO good, little things like this makes me forget it is open source. Have never missed Finale or Sibelius (although never quite had these particular little issues with those.)
Comments
I'm guessing you might be using MusicXMl as part of this process? That definitely locks in stem directions, so if you change clefs or tranpose, you'll need to reset them. Immediately after import, always best to Ctrl+A to select all, then Ctrl+R to reset things, and also run each of the reset commands in the Format menu.
If that's not it, please attach your score and give precise steps to reproduce the problem. Normally MuseScore follows the standard rules of music notation regarding stem direction, so you shouldn't have to be flipping them except in the special cases where you have subjective reasons to deviate from the standard, to occasionally avoid collisions or save space in a particular context or whatever.
As for the note spellings, when you say you are "walking" them down, if you don't mean, Ctrl+Down to transpose them exactly an octave, then it's to be expected anything else will change accidental spellings. Again, if you have some special case where this isn't working as expected,d then attach your score and give precise steps to reproduce the problem. Then we can understand and assist better.
In reply to I'm guessing you might be… by Marc Sabatella
Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply, Marc. I did not use MusicXML- just a MuseScore file from 2019 reportedly uploaded by John Smith. Is he an actual person? There are thousands of pieces under that name... I'd like to know who he is (assuming it is a he) and offer a cleaned up version of the Schütz motet I was using. I also wrote a brass ensemble version, and don't quite know what the protocol is for uploading music that is based on something someone else originally entered the notes for.
Anyway, for now I'm uploading the file as it was originally uploaded to MuseScore as well as the cleaned up version just in case. The clean up could save someone all the time it took me to fix all the problems. When I get more info about uploading the brass ensemble version, I'll do that. Meanwhile, if you go to the first tenor part and "change instrument" to trombone 1, you should see how the Bb's on top of the bass clef staff all have the stems going up instead of down, as you requested I send. (the second file and pdf are the clean up of the same vocal score).
Thanks again.
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In reply to Thanks for the quick and… by asotuba@gmail.com
I know the account you mean, and yeah, I think most of those scores are MusicXML imports from somewhere else. Some of that's kind of obvious if you notice all the weird glitches like the stem thing, but also, check File / Score Properties.
Anyhow, click any of the notes in question and look in the Inspector and you'll see they are being forced to that direction rather than left in their usual Auto setting, and that's why they remain that way on transposition, and why I always recommend a full reset when starting from a MusicXML score. The MusicXML file presumably had that hard-coded and MuseScore is simply honoring it.