I argued that not using a cautionary was poor practice even if technically correct – if for no other reason than avoiding wasting time in a rehearsal (e.g. Most editions will provide a cautionary accidental, but that’s only a courtesy and apparently not strictly required. It turns out that, by the book, it’s correct to /not/ specify any accidental at the octave of the second note because the key signature applies, and the accidental at the octave of the first note only applies at that octave, not any other. It was decided that this second note inherited from the key signature, not from the accidental on the first note – a situation which I complained about on grounds of ambiguity. I had a “professional” argument recently on a related situation – there was an accidental (naturalising the key signature) at one octave and the same note appeared later in the same bar at another octave without any accidental. In this follow-up post, we cover how to show key signatures on some staves but not on others.Īh, thanks! That’s both interesting and useful to know. If you don’t see it, be sure that you have selected the Advanced palettes. MuseScore 2 added an Open/Atonal option, which shows as a non-printing “X” in the key signature palette to distinguish it from C major/A minor. MuseScore users aren’t out of luck, either. Fortunately, Finale 2014 introduced the Keyless signature option, along with full MusicXML support.Ĭhoosing this option, either upon initial score setup or later in the composing process, works much the same as choosing Atonal/No key in Sibelius. Workarounds were possible but time consuming, especially if you needed to alternate the key signatures in the same score as described above. A section from Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, transitioning from open key to F major in a transposing scoreĭo you use Finale? Until Finale 2014, the option for an open key didn’t exist. Doing so is nothing new Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland are just two of the many composers who have found it useful to do this. You can, of course, mix keyed passages and keyless passages in the same score. If you’ve already set up your score with a key signature and wish to change it later, no problem: simply type K to call up the Key Signatures gallery, choose Atonal/No key, and click the first bar of the score (or the first bar of where the open key is to begin). If your piece is really truly in a key signature, this will be exactly what you want.īut if your intent is to not have any key signatures anywhere, in any instrument, as is often common when composing film scores or atonal music, you’ll need to choose No key (sometimes this appears as Open key/atonal in earlier versions of Sibelius), lest your music be littered with unnecessary naturals. You see your options in the Quick Start, choose No key signature and are presented with three options, all of which may seem similar:Īlthough they look alike, your choice has important ramifications: if you choose C major or A minor, any transposing instruments (like B-flat Clarinet) will display their transposed key signature (like D major) in a transposed score or a part. Say you’re setting up a new score in Sibelius and want to get right on with composing in concert pitch. Now, they may look the same on first blush. During my conversation on the SoundNotion podcast several weeks ago with hosts David MacDonald and Sam Merciers, we touched on a persistent notation problem we encounter when working with scores from well-meaning students or collaborators: a piece written in C major or A minor is not the same thing as one with no key signature.
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