Skip to main content
Topic: Tranposing part of a staff? (Read 1539 times) previous topic - next topic

Tranposing part of a staff?

Apologies if this is already covered somewhere, but I've searched and cannot find it ...

Sometimes (too often!) when I'm setting music, I make mistakes.  Equally, when I'm arranging music I sometimes change my mind later.  I'm sure we all do, at times.  Is there then a way to "move" - transpose - part of a staff?  I can see how to transpose a whole staff, but I only want to apply it to a selected part.  For example, in what I've just arranged, I want to transpose 3 fairly complicated bars down an octave.

I tried to copy the selected bars to a blank staff, along with the key and time signatures, transpose that (which worked) and then copy and paste the result back into the original staff, but it "untransposed" on pasting it back.  Have I missed something straightforward, please?

Re: Tranposing part of a staff?

Reply #1
Hey Tony,
an octave shift is easy as there's no key signature change etc.  Just highlight/select the bars/notes to be octave shifted, press and hold <Ctrl+Shift> and press the up or down arrow 7 times.  This will move the selected notes up or down 7 lines/spaces which is an octave.

To transpose a section and have a key signature change as well, then your technique of copying/transposing/copying back SHOULD (and does) work.  I've done it many times.  Just remember to
  • have the original key signature on the temporary staff before you transpose
  • UNcheck the "Update Staff playback... (not that this really matters)
  • include the new key signature when you copy the section back to the old staff
  • restate the original key signature in the bar following the transposed section (unless you want to continue the work in the new key).
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

 

Re: Tranposing part of a staff?

Reply #2
Many thanks for the "<Ctrl+Shift>" way of doing this.  I'd often wondered why there wasn't something like that ... but now I know that there is and it's just that I hadn't found it!  That works fine and is exactly what I need.  Thank you.  As for the other way of doing it, I suspect I may have not had sufficient key signatures in place when I did it ... but now I don't need that method any longer.