Transpose only changes first key signature

• Aug 4, 2009 - 19:07
Type
Functional
Severity
S2 - Critical
Status
closed
Project
MuseScore
  1. Open nightingale.mscz or any file with a key change
  2. Edit > Select All
  3. Notes > Transpose...
  4. Mark the "Transpose key signatures" checkbox
  5. Change Semitones to 2

Expected behavior: Key signatures in measure 1 and measure 18 should be one flat (F major). Key signature in measure 12 should be three sharps (A major).

Actual behavior: Key signature in measure 1 transposes, but the key signatures in measure 12 and measure 18 do not change.

(Tested using 0.9.5 rc2, Windows XP)

First reported by awillkey: http://musescore.org/en/node/2279

Comments

• Feb 11, 2010 - 05:18
Status (old) fixed ⇒ active

Transpose by interval works correctly for scores with multiple key signatures. However the transpose by key signature behaves differently than I would expect.

  1. Open nightingale.mscz
  2. Edit > Select All
  3. Notes > Transpose
  4. Choose "F major / D minor"
  5. Mark the "Transpose key signatures" checkbox

Expected behavior: Since the first key signature is Eb major, all notes and key signatures should transpose up by a major second.

Actual behavior: The first key signature transposes up a major second as expected. The second key signature transposes down a major second (from G major to F major).

Discussion: Although the current behavior is logical (change all key signatures to F major) it is less useful and somewhat unexpected for the following reasons:

  • Consider a typical use case: a song is slightly too low for a singer so I what to transpose from Eb major to F major. I expect that the whole score is now a major second higher but actually one section is now lower).
  • Most music prepares for a key change with a specific sequence of chords. These chords will now seem out of place since the whole piece is in the same key
  • Sibelius follows the expected behavior I outlined above

(Tested using r. 2701 nightly, Windows XP)

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