Is there a way to always have B sharp and F flat enharmonically transposed in parts?

Dorico
1

I’m aware of the “Prefer enharmonic equivalent key signatures with fewer accidentals” and “Prefer simpler accidentals”; but I wondered if there’s a way to just always force B sharp and F flat to be enharmonically transposed in parts to C natural and E natural? With those settings, I never quite seem to get a part without these. I primarily compose/arrange for big band, and basically B sharp and F flat are rarely I thing in those sorts of charts.

2

Not automatically, currently. You’ll have to find them and change them in the parts manually. As you may know, when you do so, it doesn’t affect the enharmonics in the score layout(s).

3

Oh how annoying. Oh well, not to worry.

4

This is a behavior I have always felt was wrong. I realize there can be cases where a person might want the score to be different from the parts, but in my case, I almost always want them to be the same. If I am editing in the parts or the score, by default it should not matter, except for layout issues. In properties, we have the option of specifying local or global, but that same thing ought to be available for enharmonic spellings too.

5

If you make the enharmonic flip in the transposed score then it will be in both the score and part. W switches from the part layout to the score so I simply hit W, use the shortcut to flip the enharmonic, hit W to return to the part layout. It’s a couple of extra clicks, but still pretty fast and you don’t have to make the edits twice.

6

Also I should have mentioned:

  • You can Select All in a completed part and filter for B♯ or F♭ to find them faster and be sure to catch them all (although it’s also worth going over by eye to avoid too many diminished thirds)
  • When you’ve changed enharmonics in a part and you also want them in the score, there is always Write > Respell > Propagate Note Spellings
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