Transposing from C major to C minor

I’ve noticed that transposing a section of music the key signature does not change, though if the signature is a part of the section I have the option of transposing it.

How do I transpose from C major to C minor? If I just change the signature I now have natural signs in front of each E, A, and B. I don’t see how I would transpose just those three pitches.

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Select All, filter for Notes and Chords. Shift+I to open the notes and intervals popover, then e=eb,a=ab,b=bb and Enter.

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Wait… does that do all those notes in the flow!?

All the selected notes, yes.

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You learn something new every day, though I don’t use the intervals popover very much.

I’ve just removed my original reply because yours is better.

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Hi @bellist, besides the useful solution by @asherber, as an alternative there is also the Map Scale functionality (menu Write>Transform>Map Scale…), which can be handy in other scenarios too, depending on your needs:


(If you need also the B to be flat, choose Aeolian (Natural Minor) as Destination scale pattern, instead of Harmonic Minor)

Workflow:

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Thanks for pointing it out.. I’ll have to play with it.

To add to the very good suggestions already given here, the note tool popover (Shift+I) also lets you enter syntax like c M to c m — for the minor scale, that gives you the harmonic one, here with B naturals.

(credit to @Janus who mentioned this in a thread, a couple of months ago)

And if you want the B flats: c M to c nat m

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I bookmarked that post and came here to say the same thing :grin: Shift+I can be really powerful.

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There is one more solution: Make your selection, then open the interval popover and write “snap cmin”.

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I find that one to be unreliable as sometimes the notes snap the wrong way! It would need to be snap c m down else E might snap to F rather than Eb (I know it shouldn’t but it does!)

Unfortunately, after testing again, you are right! Tried out for example a C major scale to “snap” to g minor, which results in c d eb f# g a c c. No b.

Obviously this function needs to be revised.

Meanwhile the the note tools popover – not just intervals – is my favorite :wink:

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I rest my case :joy:

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These are both great functions that I hadn’t explored!

I believe this popover started out as an Intervals popover – hence the Shift+I – and later changed to Note Tools as it added more functionality. In my head, I still find it useful to call it Intervals, to correspond with the key command, even though I know it does much more!

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