Transpose command with chords in "DO - RE - MI ecc" format

[Foto Simone]

Hi!
I try to traspose some songs that are write in italian style, with chord like "DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI" and it doesn't work.

How can I do?

Thanks

[Foto Simone]

I solved partially the problem. I didn't have the correct character at the start of the line.

Now the transpose work, but not very well. There are 2 problems:

1- if I transpose mamy times, for example +1 semitone , then -1 , then +2 , then -2, then +1, then -1, the result chords are unreadable, with wrong letters.

2- second problem: the chord "Re" is written "Rè", with accent.

After transposition Is possibile return to the original chords?

Thanks!

[Sarah Dab]

Hi Foto,

'Transpose' was mentioned in the December 5.4.2 release notes.  If you are not at latest version then try again after upgrade (you will need to upgrade to get a fix anyway).  It will help you get support if you include your app version in this conversation - it is a the top of the options menu.

"Rè" is french solfege - wiki suggests 'Re' is used by a lot more languages.  Gareth may like to change it (perhaps the French can forgive the accent being missing rather more than other country users asking what is that?) - this will make it behave as suggested by the format description which uses 'Re' (no accent).  Ask Gareth.

Sarah

[Gareth Evans]

Hi Foto,

The transpose feature has had a few updates recently to try to improve the functionality and performance.  Sarah is right to make sure you have the most up to date version.

Unfortunately repeated transposing can be problematic, particularly if the spacing between chords and positioning above words restricts.

.G C  D  G
 A short line

Transposing this by +3 (to Bb) can make chords appear very close together.  It can then become difficult to go back easily.

.BbEb F  Bb
 A short line

The problem can be made even worse with long chord names (e.g. Bbm7b5) trying to fit over a short word.  The app will do its best to keep the width of chords consistent between transposes, but it will never be perfect.  You can improve this by adding in extra spaces wherever possible, or using the _ character which gets converted to a space.  You'd only need to do this if you have a song with lots of chords very close together and you are likely to regularly transpose the song.  An example is below:

.G  C  D   G
 A _short _line

Converts to:

.Bb Eb F   Bb
 A _short _line

Regarding the Re or Ré issue, I accept there is a difference.  There are many variations of Solfège (because transpose is added, I'm talking about fixed Solfège) and each language has it's own variations.  e.g.  

French: do, ré, mi, fa, sol, la and si.

Portuguese: dó, ré, mi, fá, sol, lá, si

Spanish (and many others): do re mi fa sol la si

English: do re mi fa so la ti (other options too!)

I've never used any of these scales, so I'm definitely not an expert.  I'm based in Scotland (UK), and we use C, D, E, F, G, A, B  (unlike Germany who use C, D, E, F, G, A H!).  There are many more chord options as well!  When I first set this up I used the Ré option, but since the version without the accents appears to be the most common (and should be understandable), I'll adjust the code now for v5.4.4 to reflect this.

Can you go back after transposing?  Yes by reversing your transposing (although some spacing will be changed), or by getting the original song out of a backup file (you have made a backup right?).  The backup file is actually a zip file with the ending of .osb rather than .zip (so that OpenSongApp can be the default app to open it).  If you change the filename to end with .zip, you can extract the zip file using various apps and get individual songs back.

Also, if you want to have multiple versions of the same song in different keys, you can duplicate the song (Options>Song>Duplicate).  This gives you a copy that you can edit while keeping the original untouched.  If you are using a set, you can change a song in a set to a variation (effectively a duplicate that gets saved in the set file).  The variation can be transposed and will leave the original untouched.

Hopefully that helps?

Gareth