Coming from Finale, I’ve enjoyed many of the automations of Dorico but the transposition function seems to be designed to make things harder. I’ve got a piece with a couple of keys throughout and all I want to do is take it from F to Db major and transpose all the subsequent keys proportionally. I can’t seem to do that. I can transpose notes and then change keys afterwards but even that leaves me with awful enharmonic spelling. Attached is the file. Am I missing something?
Where Is Thy Peace F Maj.dorico (1.3 MB)
Have you made sure that you tick Transpose key signatures in the Transpose dialog?
Having transpose key signatures checked takes away my option to transpose a major third down or minor sixth up.
Yes, I can see that. I’m not sure why but I’m sure there’s a good reason.
Perhaps, it might be best to transpose each tonality, including key signatures, separately for now.
Transposing from F to Db is a third major down. But if you happen to have a Ab key somewhere (or a Db), the 3d major down would be Fb (Bbb in that other case I mention), which Dorico cannot use.
Use the system track to select the portions of music (and their key sig) that do work a major 3d down and use the Transpose tool. Then select the other bits that need a diminished 4th down and use the Transpose tool again.
Where Is Thy Peace F Maj transposed 3rd maj down.dorico (1,4 Mo)
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Thanks Marc. I think I was expected it to be a little easier than transposing each section separately.
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I’m new and not sure how the feature requests go but a simpler method of key transpositions would be great. I understand the logic for keeping keys signature and note pitches separate but it seems like there’s a better way of doing things.
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Perhaps keeping the existing transpose function but adding a new Transpose Key function would be helpful. There are few things better about Finale but it’s ability to easily transpose keys (with notes as desired) could be copied into Dorico and it would make simple transpositions across an entire song with multiple keys very easy. Dorico makes the user do the intervalic math rather than just choosing which key they want. Many of us can do the math, but why?
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When adding a key change through existing methods but not transposing existing notes, it would make sense to make all existing notes enharmonically fit the new key according to standard spelling tables. If afterwards, you’re looking for a non-standard enharmonic spelling of notes, at that point the extra steps of using Dorico’s existing transpose function could work. Why make users go through the extra work to get non-standard enharmonic spellings?
Again, there’s many great features of Dorico. The current transposition methods just seem like they’re emphasizing technicalities over ease of use.
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The Transpose dialog also includes a section that will do all the math for you – you don’t even need to know anything about keys! You can just say, “Well, the first note of the piece is a C, and I want it to be an F in the same octave.”
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I’m not ignorant of the Calculate interval feature but it doesn’t help when transposing from certain keys to the others like in the screenshot here. Or when there are multiple key changes throughout a song and you’re looking for a simpler solution than transposing each separately. I’m not saying it’s impossible. It’s just not easy and I thought that software was suppose to make things easy.
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I think the “Calculate Interval” feature has some of the same limitations that choosing an interval yourself has, and in this case, as @MarcLarcher pointed out, Dorico has problems carrying out this transposition because of the double flats.
In many (most?) cases, I think this would work fine, without any math, and it would take care of subsequent sections in different keys as well.