Key Signature issue
I'm trying to learn Musescore 3.6.2. I started a new score, answered all the questions in the dialog boxes, and specifically said the score should be in the key of D. It was a simple fiddle melody, so everything was entered in one session. The score looked good and played back fine, so it was saved for further editing at a later time.
Upon opening the saved score all the F's and C's had natural signs in front of them. Any idea why that would happen?
So, all the natural signs were changed to sharps. So now I have a score written in the key of D with sharp signs in front of all the C's and F's, that's not right. What has happened?
Comments
You' re usually asked to attach the *.mscz file so that someone can check it.
See: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/tools#respell-pitches and https://musescore.org/en/handbook/3/accidentals#respell-pitches
HTH
In reply to See: https://musescore.org… by Shoichi
Thanks for the response, but it didn't work for me. Attached are two files. The first file is the one that was originally saved and upon opening had all the C's and F's marked as naturals. The second file, marked as rev1, is where I tried to change to notes to sharps.
In reply to Thanks for the response, but… by wtalley550
I guess you want to transpose the score from C-Major to D-Major, nit just change its keysignature after the fact, which does keep all the pitches as originally entered?
So just use Tools > Transpose rather ttan replacining all naturals with sharps (which then turn out as courtesy accidentals, so you could as well have deleteted all naturals)
In reply to Thanks for the response, but… by wtalley550
The second score has exactly the problem I described before - you must have asked museScore to add accidentals (using the # button on the toolbar or palette), rather than asking it to raise the pitch (using the up arrow key). If you ask it to add an accidental, it will do so, whether needed or not. That's an important feature because it's how courtesy key signatures work. So, dson't use the toolbar to add an accidental if you don't want to physically see an accidental - use the arrow keys to change pitch and let MuseScore calucalte accidentals automatically.
As for how the naturals appeared in the first place. that's still impossible to say. I can just say that in over 10 years of use creating thousands of scores and reading tens of thousands of forum posts, I've never once heard of this happening all by itself. I strongly suspect you accidentally did something to make that happen, but aside from the possibility that you might have somehow delete the key signature then added it back but too late, it's hard to guess what. Maybe you deleted it while creating the pickup measure? I have seen that happen.
As mentioned, we really neeed to see the score in order to do more than guess. But my best guess if, when you added the sharps to the notes, you used the toolbar, which says, add a "sharp sign" - and it follows your instruction literally whether the sharp sign is needed or not. If you just want to change the pitch and have MuseScore automatically determine what accidentals are needed, just use the arrow keys to change the pitch directly.
That still doesn't explain how you ended up with naturals to begin with though.
In reply to As mentioned, we really… by Marc Sabatella
I set up the score to be in the key of D. Then I just added the notes figuring Musescore would make the notes sound sharp but not add sharp signs. did not add sharps to any notes.
In reply to I set up the score to be in… by wtalley550
I don't think you did, it seems you set the score up as C-Major, added the notes and then changed the keyx signature to D-Major rather than transposing it.
In reply to I don't think you did, it… by Jojo-Schmitz
When I set up the new score, Musescore asked me what key I wanted to use. I entered D-Major. When the program set up the new score the D-Major key signature was there. Then I added the notes to the score. I never changed the key signature.
In reply to When I set up the new score,… by wtalley550
Then I don't understand how those naturals came into the score, unless you entered them willingly and knowingly
Thank you everyone for taking the time to try and help me. I "bit the bullet" and made a new score and this time it worked as expected. So, it's obvious I made a mistake somewhere and it would be nice to know how to correct it; but, for now, my immediate problem has been solved.
In reply to Thank you everyone for… by wtalley550
Well, to correct it, we've already explained, simply use the arrow keys instead of the toolbar or palette. And if you've then made that mistake as well, just delete the unnecessary accidentals (eg, right-click one, Select / All Similar Elements, then Delete). They will still be F#'s & C#'s because of the key signature.
If you mean, how to avoid the original mistake, that's harder to say without knowing, but again, this is not something I've ever heard reported before, so it must be some really unusual strange sequence of things you did, chances are good you won't stumble on that exact combination again.