Transposing key

I am trying to transpose the key of a score from F to Eb but can not seem to be able to do this? There is probably an obvious answer but your help would be grateful.

I’m really sorry, but there’s no transpose dialog available in the initial release of Dorico. This is a very high priority for us to add as soon as possible. In the meantime, depending on the complexity of the music, you might find that adding the E flat key signature and then selecting the music and hitting Alt+down arrow, then fixing any necessary accidentals, is an acceptable workaround, but it’s obviously a lot more steps than it should be.

Guess I will go back to Sibelius for this one!

Yes, sorry! You can export your score via MusicXML and then open it up in Sibelius to make the necessary changes.

Here comes three steps as workaround:

  1. Change the key signature to make sure the E is flattened and the F has no accidental;

  2. Select the entire score and press ALT+DownArrow once. This will make sure your actual music content is on E-flat.

  3. If the current key signature is not E-flat, now you could change the key signature to E-flat.

Hope this could help.

P.S.: Alt+DownArrow/UpArrow is to shift pitch per diatonic interval, while CMD+Alt+DownArrow/UpArrow is per 8ve.

wrong !

Are there any keys for putting notes up or down octaves? I’ve tried to assign key commands to this function, but unfortunately, there’s no respond after I hit the apply button.

CRTL+ALT+[up or down arrow] moves selected note(s) up or down an octave.

Hi Derrek, I’m a Mac user, so I guess the ctrl key is actually cmd key and i tried, it works. Thank you Derrek

Glad it helped. I’m awaiting delivery of a USB-dongle so I can try Dorico out on my Mac laptop as well as my Windows desktop.

It’s a pity we can’t transpose yet. Wasn’t this one of the improvements promised for version 1.0.10? The version 1.0 workaround doesn’t work. Moving everything by a certain interval keeps everything diatonic. If you then change the key signature, you’ll get musical gibberish. Same story if you change the key signature first. Would it be possible to trick Dorico into treating the parts as though they were transposing instruments?

Yes, transposition is something we will address in 1.0.10.

See here Daniel’s blog post for more details and to see what else we plan to put in the first update release.

Thanks, Ben, that sounds promising. Does this mean the ability to transpose both diatonically and chromatically, as well as being able to select a new key signature and have everything transposed into that key?
Thanks also for the link to Daniel’s blog post. I enjoyed reading the info about the planned update and hearing the Etude Polymétrique again. I also enjoyed Daniel’s description of the piece as being ‘rather excellent’. Where does that put it on a scale of 1 to 10? Is ‘rather excellent’ better or worse than ‘very good’? :wink:

We do not have the option of inserting a key signature and transposing the music into that key in 1.0.10, but the Transpose dialog is otherwise comprehensive and I believe it will satisfy everybody’s transposition requirements.

This is a Finale concept, using the key sig to transpose the music (similar to the way ottava clefs in Finale affect the octave transposition on the staff). Sibelius and Dorico work the opposite way: use the transposition function to change the notes, and optionally also the selected key signature(s).