Possible to transpose and entire score in Eb to E in one go, notes, chords and key signature? If not, how do I achieve this?
In Write mode, under the Write menu → Transpose…
I’m not sure if this is the answer to your question or if you are having a specific issue with the transpose feature.
I see lots of options under “Write > Transpose”. . By guessing that I had to set the “Transpose by” Quality to “Augmented unison” it seemed to have worked. But I’m not sure why. What does the “at octave” (default is “4”) mean? Atonal spellings on “Never” or “Always”? Not sure what I need (and want avoid including) from all the options here. Is there a section in the manual or, better yet, a video explaining comprehensively all these options? I asked, because I tried this the other day using Write > Transpose, and it was a disaster, although I don’t know exactly why. It returned very weird harmonic spellings, for instance. So I guess I need to learn what all these parameters are.
The part of the dialog with the octave is just a helper to calculate the interval of transposition. Octave 4 is the octave above middle C, so if you were transposing from Bb to C, and wanted to transpose up a major 2nd you would specify Bb octave 4 to C octave 5. As opposed to transposing down a minor 7th: Bb4 to C4. Pressing the Apply button there puts the appropriate values in the Quality and Interval boxes. If one already knows those values the calculator isn’t necessary.
I don’t use transpose often enough to trust myself on exactly what the other options do. The documentation would definitely help there.
Because the interval from Eb to E is an augmented unison. It’s a unison because the pitches have the same base note name, and it’s augmented because it’s a half step greater than a perfect unison (which would just be Eb to Eb).
If you click the question mark icon next to the OK button in the dialog, it’ll take you right to the page in the manual describing the dialog.
The most important thing here is that if you want to transpose the key signature along with the pitches, you have to include the key signature in your selection – which it sounds like you did.
Thanks, Aaron. What you’re saying makes sense, and I surmised as much. And I appreciate the link to the documentation. I will review it all so I’m more well-versed on what all these options are. “Augmented unison“ was a new one for me….. Thanks again.
Was there a checkbox for including chords to be transposed as well? I’m on my phone and not in front of the program, but maybe that was also checked? Because it transposed the chords as well, which is also what I wanted. Update: I’m back in front of the program looking at the “Transpose” window. “Transpose key signatures”, “keep relative respelled notes in all layouts and tie-chains where possible”, and “Keep relative respelled chord symbols in all layouts where possible” were all checked. The other three were not. I guess having those first three items checked is the way to go. However, I noticed “Respell to avoid double and triple sharps and flats” was one of the items not checked. It seems to me I would have wanted that to be checked, as wouldn’t that better ensure a more readable transposition? I guess in this case, it didn’t matter.
I believe those are the defaults, and they should work in most situations.
It’s probably not going to matter in this particular case – and even when it does matter, you’d have to decide whether it’s something you want.
No checkbox, but if you included chords in your selection (often best done by using the system track) then transpose will apply to the selected chords as well.
Thanks, Derrick. I’m not sure what you mean by system track.
Got it, thanks!