Transposing instrument workflow

• Feb 27, 2025 - 19:12

I am transcribing an orchestral score and can't figure out how to get the correct workflow for transposing instruments.

When I enter notes on my digital piano, those are concert pitches. The piano is not a transposing instrument. And I want MuseScore to then write the correct written note for that sounding pitch. I don't want "Concert Pitch" on, because the score I'm transcribing isn't in concert pitch. I want always to be able to visually compare the two scores, and immediately know if I've made a mistake.

I can see how the "concert pitch" workflow can be very useful -and even that it is designed to make this easier- but what I want is total non-interference from Musescore. Its extra assistance is driving me crazy.

  1. I read the note in the score correctly. Meaning (as the arranger and not the player) I transpose it in my mind so that the note I read, say, and play is the concert pitch.
  2. I play that pitch
  3. Musescore instead writes notes as if I'm blindly copying without understanding what I'm reading.

Please tell me there is a way to do this the right way. Whatever the conventional way is in contemporary software, the default behaviors are not how transcription works. If -as a working musician- I sit down with an orchestral score and play it, I am not playing transcribing instruments "as written" or I lose my job. Likewise if someone plays notes for me on the piano and asks me to write them for -say- alto sax, I transpose the sounding notes -which are playing out loud and therefore concert pitch- to the correct written notes for that instrument, or -again- I lose my job.

I very much want MuseScore to work this way. Have I missed a setting somewhere?


Comments

Choose a non-transposing instrument. Play in your notes using your digital piano and then select the corresponding transposing instrument, e.g. alto saxophone, trumpet or horn.
Musescore will then convert this into the correct notated representation.
Assuming I have understood you correctly ...

In reply to by bobjp

It's definitely not a talent. If I can't practice it while I work on the scores, I'm going to have to stop using Musescore for orchestra scores, because this is the practice time that builds and keeps the skill. It's a little like having an app that automatically converts your scores to C major so you never have to play in other keys.

.... so what happens in the real world when I'm not using the app?

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