Changing the key signatures of a large complex work

Thank you Janus - I can get that to work, and thank you Derrek for that tutorial which I can’t get to work on my work - I put the responses in that order to illustrate where I’m at.

regrettably Derrek I cant get to your screen shot to work on mine i.e. i can see it

when I enter A natural in the “calculate interval from line”, and
enter G natural in the “calculate interval to line”
i don’t get the Apply button lit up

Similarly if I enter A flat from and G flat to

so I cant click Apply and then click OK

I don’t get a “major” option in the Quality menu - just Perfect or Diatonic

there is no “second” option in the Interval menu

I can’t enter 2 or 2/12 in the Number of divisions menu

and cant invoke the “down” option in the Direction

and I don’t have the “Apply atonal spelling options” on my Transpose Dialog box

as I said previously it appears as if some aspect of the dialog box is suppressed or locked

However I’ve tried it on a section selected using System Track which is only in one key and all staves and it works. I’ll work through the remaining 6 sections and see where i get to

UPDATE

Derrek
I’ve done as you suggested and transposed section by section.
That seemed to work for 6 of the 7 sections, however my attempt at transposing the E - D section gave the problems I highlighted above with the dialog box being unresponsive.
What could be the cause of that? if all other 6 sections transpose seemingly easily

There has to be some sort of a quirky accidental in the E major section, one that can’t reasonably be transposed down by a major second.

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I think I may have “isolated” the issue

the 43 bar section in E major follows a 21 bar section in D Major

The issue appears with the first bar of the E major section - I can transpose the remaining 42 bars without issue I think - having quickly done it once as a test

That first bar of the E major section has a Trumpet in Bb, tied G# from the prior bar in its written E major, tied into a Gb in its new written Gb key in the new bar in the concert E major section as part of a transition. Eliminate that, and perhaps the 2 bar initial trumpet in Bb solo motif around F in the written key of Gb to anchor the music in the new E major key and the transposing works.

I can think of a few ways to deal with it eg
1 delete the tied note and motif and reenter when the transposition has been done
2 delete the tie and leave the notes where they are

What would Dorico Forum recommend

Congrats on spotting this! I would recommend deleting the tie, and then try to tie the notes together again after you’ve transposed everything. If that doesn’t work, you could use a slur instead of a tie, I suppose.

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Thanks Stephen

another option could be to transpose the Trumpet parts either side of the key change first and then proceed to transpose the complete E major section now that the rogue item has been dealt with separately. I would add that this trumpet part works fine as a piece of music in the original score, it’s just that it creates a challenge for Dorico’s transposing function and I’m sure for all other scoring packages.

Would that work in Dorico??

By the forum commenting on the issue the way it has and Stephen Taylor’s and another’s comment on possibly deleting the tie as a solution, I may have stumbled on a reason.

When I transposed the prior section (Concert D to C), I can briefly recall that the tied note which spanned into the following section (in concert E) was highlighted, and I must have transposed that as well when I transposed the prior section. Thus when it came to transposing the following section the tied note was already transposed into a “rogue state”.

I’ll do as suggested of deleting the tie before transposing the Concert D to C section and try and fix it afterwards.

Unfortunately at the moment I can’t delete the tie without deleting the notes either side of the change from one section to another. I can’t select the tie in isolation whilst leaving the notes either side in place. Perhaps I need to ungroup or unlink somehow.

The above is just a guess at the moment.

Select the tie, then type U for untie - the notes will be unaffected. The U command actually works with any note: if you go into note input on a whole note, and move your cursor halfway through the note and type U, the whole note will turn into two half notes. Really convenient!

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absolutely brilliant Stephen,

using U eliminates the tie and shows the note in the prior concert D written E section as a G, and shows the note in the following Concert E written Gb section as a G# which it didn’t do until I used U.

At first glance that uncoupling and deleting the note in the Concert E section still doesn’t allow it to be transposed down because the transpose dialog doesn’t recognize that the whole section is in E which means that there’s something else amiss in that transition and that it’s isolated to the first bar since the remaining E major section transposes well. There has to be something about that first bar whilst indicating E major, the transpose dialog recognizes it as an F which can only be transposed to D rather than Eb or D#. Curious.

I think I may have found a way of dealing with my challenge…

at first glance it looks like
• Decouple (u) / eliminate / delete the tie
• Transpose the Trumpets in the E major section from Gb to F#
• Transpose the E major section to D major
• Recouple the tie

Although there appeared to be a lock on the (first bars of the?) trumpet part in the section or alternatively I didn’t know how to work Dorico

I also couldn’t get the key signature icon in the panel on the right to work - each time I tried to change the key signature for the trumpets in the section it kept the trumpets the same whilst changing the key signature for all other instruments. Or perhaps I didn’t know how to work the tool.

And it sounds reasonable

Does this make sense or am I making a mountain out of a molehill and there’s a simpler way. One person asked me if there was a bug in the program so I’ll look to see if there’s an update.

It makes sense to me that an enharmonic tie across a key change could prevent the dialog from offering the desired transposition as a possibility. I don’t think there’s an easier way.

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Thanks Mark, are you part of the Dorico development team?

Nope, just a user observing what I can about the software …

I’m now happy that the following work around (engineering technical term!) works
• Decouple (u) / eliminate / delete the tie

  • Change Trumpet Key signatures from Gb to F# , very importantly starting with the Trumpet with the tie first and then secondly Trumpet without the tie but for both using Write, Transpose dialog box (if one doesn’t do that for some unknown reason and start with the Trumpet without the tie first, that Trumpet stays the same and all other instruments are transposed, so I’ve had to use Ctrl Z to reverse and find a path through )
    • Complete the transposition of the Trumpets in the E major section from Gb to F#
    • Transpose each section of the 7 sections in the Flow, key signature by key signature, 1 tone down
    which includes the transposition of the E major full orchestral section to D major
    • Recouple the tie
    I think that works

Thanks everyone for all your help