I recently imported a project from Finale 25 to Dorico 4. My intention was to take a unit of major scale studies (I am a high school band director) and repurpose them into a scale unit of minor scale studies using Dorico’s intuitive pitch mapping features. The good news is that transforming my major scale unit into melodic minor scales was a breeze and it saved me a ton of time rather than going thru the same process in Finale 25.
However, as you may know certain enharmonic spellings in major look pretty gnarly in melodic minor. I knew I would have to convert the scales that employ double flats in a minor mode to make reading easier for my students. I have attempted to change these key signatures using the “shift K” shortcut but when I do this the measures blink and nothing changes.
I can use the “respell” function to change the scale patterns but the old key signature remains in place.
Welcome to the forum, @nathant.clark33 . It will be easier if we can see a screen shot of the situation you are facing. Since you are a new arrival, the forum software may make you wait to post such an image until you have read a bunch of posts. This, I encourage you to do, since an image will help us immensely.
I have a screen grab video of the process I went thru. This has worked fine in projects I have created in Dorico… just not this one. Do you have an email address I can send it to?
I tend not to download videos, although I appreciate your offer. In addition, others here may have wiser solutions than I. What you can do (once Discourse gives you posting access) is to post a snippet of your Dorico file, just enough to demonstrate the challenge you are facing. That is what most folks have done, and I have not yet heard anyone complain that their music has been appropriated.
One phrase that would benefit us to see in action is where you say you have “attempted to change these key signatures using the “shift K” shortcut .” Seeing what you started with, what you were trying for, and what you ended with would tell us a lot; and often someone might send you back an altered version of your snippet with an explanation of what he or she had done to alter it.
Welcome to the forum, @nathant.clark33 – perhaps what you’re looking for is the Transpose dialog? You can use the Calculate area on the right to tell Dorico what settings to use for a specific transformation, like C# to Db.
If the material you selected before opening the dialog included an explicit key signature (the item itself, either as shown in the music or as a signpost) then you have the option to transpose the key signature along with the notes in the selection.
Sorry I am late getting back to you! Dorico allowed me to transpose the pitches but not the key signatures. I have attached a screen shot of the menu to this post. The “transpose key signature” icon was greyed out. Any ideas as to why that is?
