Key Change/personal transpose

[pbob42]

Setting this up for my church.  Been using onsong.  Pasted the "key" field on my "more buttons" layout next to the "title"

In chordpro I spec the key of the song in brackets to facilitate key changes for the song.  In STM I enter the Key in a field of the song details.  If I hit the sharp or flat button on the toolbar - chords change, but the key sig is not changed.  when I come back to the song,  it is back to the original key

I am assuming this is the personal transpose function.

So, what if I upload a song in A and I want to sing it in C, always.  How do I transpose it and have it reflected in the key sig of the song so it is displayed as "How Great thou art"  "C"

thx

[arlo]

Transposing from the set list view is temporary and is reset when you leave the song.

If you want to permanently change the key of a song, you can go to its edit page, use the transpose buttons above the Lyrics and/or Chords fields, and change the Key field.

Personal Transpose lets you save a transposition amount for yourself without affecting what other users see.

[pbob42]

Thanks for that - is there an easy way to jump from the edit page to the view page?  The only way I see is to put it in a show and the display it

[pbob42]

see the sharp and flat buttons on the song editing page.  They do change all the chords, but the key remains unchanged.  Is that just an alphanumeric field for display purposes?

[arlo]

You can preview a song's lyrics, chords or documents by clicking the document icons in the Documents list on the song edit page. You can only see the entire song info and functionality by viewing the song in a set list or smart list. While viewing a song in a set list or smart list, you can click the Edit Song button in the top toolbar to edit it in a popup.

The key field does not change automatically when you transpose because there are cases where you need to transpose the chords without changing the key (e.g., a guitarist using a capo or a horn player with a transposing instrument).

[JerryK]

I put the key on the Lyrics page as well.  That one changes live with the transpose functions.  Sometimes an interesting fact has its uses as well.

[arlo]

To clarify, I think you mean you put the key into the Lyrics field, something like:

(Key:) A

That would transpose because the app would see it as a chord name. Note the parentheses around the non-chord text; chords will only transpose if they are positioned using ChordPro formatting, or placed on a line with only other chords or non-chord text in parentheses.

[pbob42]

what is the lyrics field?  When I enter (Key:) E as the only text on a line in the song, the E does not transpose for me.  If I put it in square brackets it will, but I would rather have it on the Line rather than above the line for the title.

[arlo]

Are you using square brackets around chords in the Lyrics field? If so, you would need to put square brackets around anything you want transposed.

[pbob42]

I entered this in the lyrics of the song

(Key:) A

Then I entered A all alone.  Neither one transposed. 

In Chordpro I enter:
{Title:  How Great thou Art}
{Key:A}

The "A" is transposable in this format.  It also seems to set a base to transpose from.  You can transpose directly to a key, rather than by half steps.

Why is it that Set List Maker strips out this data?

What is nice in Onsong is that the Title is shown left justified and the key right justified on the first line.  Onsong will even determine the key if it is not specified.  That is quite nice when there are all kinds of different chord charts out there.

To be able to glance at the song and know what key it is in is very useful (even necessary) in church settings.  We might play a song in 2 or even three different keys depending on who is singing.

[pbob42]

I placed the title button on my overlapping buttons layout and alongside it the key button.  But that key does not transpose.  If I remove the title and key and then type in the title with the key in square brackets net to the title it will transpose, but will also appear above the line. 

I am looking for a way to do this:  How Great Thou Art   A on the first line with the A being transposable.  I am assuming there is a way to do this.  What am I missing?

[pbob42]

ah ha

[How Great Thou Art]  [A]

works

[arlo]

"If I remove the title and key and then type in the title with the key in square brackets net to the title it will transpose, but will also appear above the line."

If you are using square brackets to position chords above lyrics, you will need to use square brackets around all the chords in the song, including this key name. Note that what we're talking about here is not an official function to display a transposable key, it's a workaround proposed by another user to use a chord name to represent the key. You could place the bracketed key name on a line with nothing else, and then it will remain where you placed it, and maybe add a color as a hint that it is something different from all the other chord names.

Another workaround would be to write "(Key:) A" into the Chords field. That will appear above the Lyrics field in your layout and will transpose along with the Lyrics field, but does not need to use bracketed chords. (This is a workaround because the Chords field was meant to display chord charts, not the key name.)

"Why is it that Set List Maker strips out this data?"

Set List Maker is not a ChordPro viewer/editor. It can use square brackets for chord placement within lyrics, as ChordPro does, but otherwise it uses a database to save and display information. That provides more capabilities than embedding all the information into a plain text file as ChordPro does.

"We might play a song in 2 or even three different keys depending on who is singing."

If these different key options are predetermined, you could enter separate versions of the song for each key you regularly play it in. If you are adding a lot of info to your songs, you can use smart copies to inherit shared info while entering separate Lyrics, Key and Singer fields.

[pbob42]

THANKS