Hi,
After much fighting with a PhotoScore scanned score XML (ended up sending it to Sibelius and resaving as XML before Dorico could read it), I’m now having issues with transposition. The piece is for wind quintet and Bb clarinet and horn parts are already transposed. How do I get this to play back/appear in individual parts correctly in Doric without another transposition happening?
I’ve looked through other related questions and can’t find any option that would tell Dorico the score is already transposed…
The problem is probably that PhotoScore didn’t recognize the score as transposed.
MusicXML and Dorico both “know” about transposing instruments, but they can’t guess that the written notes in the file are not the ones you wanted!
In the Dorico Edit menu there are options to view the score and parts at concert pitch or transposed pitch. If the music doesn’t match what those options display, you need to transpose the music on the staves to fix the problem using Write > Transpose. You might need to fix the key signature(s) as well.
I think you missed “the” step that would make your life way easier…
When you send the file from Photoscore Ultimate to Sibelius, Sibelius asks you if you want to let Sibelius pick the instruments… The first choice of this window is “this is a transposed score”. When you select it, you’ll have to input the right instruments (with the right transposition).
Once this is done, the Sibelius file will “know” what staff is transposed. And when you export it through xml in Dorico, the transpositions will be retained. I find that I usually have to change Edit menu>Transposed pitch to have the accurate notation for score
Last operation : it’s usually useful to go through all players cards and perform Change instrument… and give (again) the right instrument in Dorico. This way you’re sure that the playback will be picking the accurate instrument.
As you can see, this all takes time, but it is worth the effort.
Try and do that in MuseScore and… you’ll know why you don’t want anything but Dorico!
Thanks both!
I went back through my steps and it looks like the issue was between Photoscore and Sibelius but they still weren’t playing nicely. Ended up just tranposing the parts into new instruments in Sibelius and saving again as XML. Still a bit fiddly but only took a few minutes and is working properly in Dorico now so I’m happy
You’re absolutely right, dwlarson! I simply forgot about the PhotoScore Preference > Reading > Transposed score because it’s always been ticked here. But I suppose there could be some problems if this were not. Thanks for pointing this out !
Having said all of that, I still ran into a transposing score with [old] instruments which Photoscore didn’t recognize (not in it’s database, I guess). Even after importing to Sibelius, then exporting again to Dorico, the transpositions of a few instruments were a mess. I suspect the problem is from Photoscore having a limited transposed instruments library. I hope I was able to manually solve the resulting issues (horns, trumpets in odd transposition).
