I imported a score from Cubase into Dorico. There are quite a few modulations and thus changing key signatures.
When modulating towards ‘no key signature’ (placing as many naturals as there were sharps or flats before), there appears a small pink field above the staff, with “C Major” written inside.
I don’t need this field, since it as well could be a modulation towards “A Minor” and since other Keys are not mentioned when modulating towards them. When I klick on the field and ‘Delete’ it, the whole modulation is neutralized and I stay in the Key from before…
So I have two questions:
How can I remove just this pink field, without neutralizing the modulation?
If ever I would find it useful to indeed mention the Key names, how can I have those pink fields to appear at every modulation, with the right (major or minor) key name written into it?
The ‘pink field’ is a key signature signpost, in this case the key of C major. If you want to change it to A minor, just double click it (the key signature popover will open) and change the C to an a. (If you want no key signature type atonal)
The key signature determines the rules for showing/hiding accidentals. So hiding them makes no sense.
Signposts are shown throughout Dorico to indicate something that is invisible on the printed page, but is an “object” in Dorico’s data.
Most key signatures are shown by the sharps and flats that they used. C major and A minor give no such indication; so you get a signpost.
In the View menu, you can select which signposts show on screen, and which are hidden. (Though invariably, you’ll find lots of posts here where the “problem” is actually a hidden signpost that the user was unaware of.)
I just tried typing “atonal” into this field. But it doesn’t make the field disappear Instead, now it shows “atonal”!
My question is: how can I have NO pink field here?
OK! Thanks Ben. Indeed, I can deactivate key signatures, making the field disappear.
But I still wonder why, when reactivating “Key Signatures”, all the other Key’s are not shown. Can I possibly write this manually?
Because all other keys are evident by the sharps and flats that they use. It might be possible to create some kind of on-screen marker, but you’d have to apply it manually.
A staff with no visible sharp or flat could be “C”, “a” or “atonal”, which are three different things. The signpost tells you what it is. It’s there because it’s not evident from looking at the staff
Oh, @benwiggy beat me to it, hat the editor open for too long
That’s right, but still…
In a piece of music that starts with a key signature and modulates to another key, then modulates to C or A, it seems obvious to me that this is not an atonal piece of music.
Then please just hide those flagpoles, that’s exactly why this option is there. If you don’t need to see them, you can hide them.
I really don’t know why you don’t use what Dorico offers you but keep arguing instead
It’s just weird to me that Dorico would believe it to be necessary to mention C Major/a minor/atonal. It just doesn’t require too much knowledge, I believe, to see by the melody and harmonics which one it is.
Well indeed, no need to argue. But since I’m not that experienced with Dorico (mainly using Cubase), I just didn’t know how to delete those signs. In the meanwhile I got the answer. Thanks for that. All the rest was just a thought. I indeed don’t want to elaborate on this.
I dare say there are some composers who would write a section of tonal music, followed by an atonal passage. And there are certainly users who might accidentally create a region of C major when they really wanted an atonal passage (or vice versa).
The signposts show what has been entered in the score – not what the intention of harmony might be.
Dorico is consistent in that any data object which does not explicitly show itself on the printed page will appear as a signpost. System Breaks; hidden objects, cues, Changes to Note Spacing or Condensing, etc, etc,…
OK Ben. I’m already very glad that I just can take it away.
Still, I can’t imagine that in any piece, when suddenly going into an atonal passage, it wouldn’t be clear immediately, because there wouldn’t be a classical harmony in that part.
In this piece, for which I was finalizing the score, ready to be printed (which was why I wanted to do this in Dorico, instead of just writing it on a piece of paper…), the last phrases are in B Major. But in the last two bars before the final chord, I have just two voices, playing with a lot of accidentals, in a way that a friend of mine (when hearing it) thought that it was a dodecaphonic phrase. This is not the case. It just makes a ‘flight’ with successive deviations, going far away from the B Major Key, and very quickly returning back to the root chord, to which a major seventh was added. One could also see this as the phrase modulating to a different Key every two notes (of the 16 eighth notes - two bars in 4/4).
Those bars would always need a lot of accidentals. Taken in itself, you would indeed call this atonal. But because this is so short and also because this phrase is precisely about the tension of leaving and returning to the B Major Key, I keep the five sharps as key signature.
By the way, I said I didn’t want to dwell on it too much…
