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[deltasalmon]

Hi. I've been trying to practice playing in other keys and since each key has a different layout on a semitone box using sheet music has helped me. I had a question about transposing. I use the Sessionite ABC transposer and it works great and makes it very easy to transpose tunes I know. Click "tune up" and it transposes up a whole tone and click "tune down" and it transposes down a whole tone. My question comes to getting all 12 keys which requires tuning a semitone.

If I have a tune in D and want to transpose to Eb is it as simple as using the ABC transpose to tune up to E and then editing the K:E and changing it to K:Eb? All the notes should flatten (or all the sharps will become natural) just by changing the key signature, correct?

[Lester]

That appears to work. I checked it by transposing a tune in D to E and then editing the K: field as suggested and it gave the same result as using EasyABC edit ti transpose 1 semitone.

[Jack Campin]

It might not, always.  If you have a G sharp accidental in the D tune (as in Da Slockit Light or St Anne's Reel), taking it up to E will make that note into an A sharp accidental.  When you change the key signature to E flat in the header, the sharp on the A won't change.  You'll have to make it into an A natural manually.

[Andy Next Tune]

If you use ABC Explorer on your PC, you can transpose in halftones up or down.

The feature is a bit hidden away - open abc file for editing in ABCExploer.
In the lower right notation pane, you'll find a whitish button above the keyboard towards the right hand end.
This is 'Tune Tools' and Transpose is one of the available tabs. I usually also select the 'no checking' option to avoid occasional ABC syntax warnings.

[deltasalmon]

It might not, always.  If you have a G sharp accidental in the D tune (as in Da Slockit Light or St Anne's Reel), taking it up to E will make that note into an A sharp accidental.  When you change the key signature to E flat in the header, the sharp on the A won't change.  You'll have to make it into an A natural manually.

Thanks for pointing this out. As long as there are no accidentals outside of the key signature this will still work then?

If that's the case then I can do it that way and just make sure to pay attention when I see a "^" or "_" in the ABC.

[deltasalmon]

I wasn't aware that EasyABC (ABC Explorer might also) uses abc2abc to transpose. I have abc2abc on my computer so I guess I just have to RTFM and learn how to use it. Thanks

[jorden]

Alternatively, http://mandolintab.net/abcconverter.php might be of help?

[Mike Hirst]

I wasn't aware that EasyABC (ABC Explorer might also) uses abc2abc to transpose. I have abc2abc on my computer so I guess I just have to RTFM and learn how to use it. Thanks

Code: [Select]

abc2abc infile.abc -t 1
will output abc one semitone higher.

Code: [Select]

abc2abc infile.abc -t -1
will output abc one semitone lower.

Code: [Select]

abc2abc infile.abc -t 1 > outfile.abc
will output new abc to outfile.abc.

N.B.  infile.abc and outfile.abc can of course be whatever file names you require.

to learn more about abc2abc

Code: [Select]

abc2abc -h

[Anahata]

In practice I find it usually has to be

abc2abc infile.abc -e -t -1 >outfile.abc

The -e tells it to ignore errors, and abc2abc is terribly picky and thinks all sorts of perfectly legitimate notation is wrong.

But it will transpose up or down any number of semitones (where did this "only a whole tone at a time" rubbish come from?), and it will convert all accidentals and chords properly, with entertaining results if you put something in quotes that wasn't meant to be a chord.  All you have to do is work out how many semitones there are from G to E flat, or whatever.

[Jack Campin]

So how do you tell it to transpose one piece to F sharp and another to G flat?

Software that can't tell the difference will make a pig's breakfast of a lot of Schubert.

[Anahata]

Yes, it's still broken for that. It only transposes to F sharp (I just tried) and there's no way of transposing to C sharp or C flat either: it will just sneak round the other way and make then D flat and B.

So machine transpose to G followed by manual intervention to change key sig to G flat, and watch out for accidentals, I suppose.