Latques

I am responding to this thread not to disagree with you but Finale’s manual. I disagree. Finale’s manual says: “The idea is to enter the music at “concert pitch” (as though the instrument was not a transposing instrument at all).” It is done by enabling Display in Concert Pitch. Please do not sophisticate on it. Great. I agree! But Finale’s manual does not: Finale’s manual says of: SPECIFY / DIATONICALLY / UTILITIES MENU / etc and it does not work! It is completelly different of what both of us are saying. No remembering required tranposition intervals by default, no Staff Tool mention, no Chromatic transposition and so on. I agree, if it is done in the right way. Both of us are right and Finale’s manual is wrong in relation to Finale itself. Taques “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”

I think you are talking about the neutral key as referred in Finale’s 2008 manual. If you are looking for a neutral key you are intending to get a score that does not have any accidental preset in the staff anyway. In order to get this first of all do not read the neutral key instructions of Finale’s manual since it is wrong (and very) for what you actually want to do. According to Finale’s manual you have to think of everything in C major with the Display in Concert Pitch enabled (as though the instrument was not a transposing instrument) - good but - and then just transpose the transposing instrument by the Utilities Menu using the Transpose dialogue box to set the appropiate interval to be transposed. If you follow these instructions and then disable Display in Concert Pitch you are going to have the key signature back for that instrument and good bye to your ex-neutral key masterpiece! There is a way to get a permanent neutral key by – after you have setup your score normally in C major (and yes the key signatures and their respective accidentals to any transposing instruments will be there untill you finish these instructions) - using the Staff Tool and double-clicking the transposing instrument staff you want to edit. It will open the Staff Attributes dialogue box and then you click Select in the (checked by default) Transposition option. In the Staff Transpositions dialogue box you choose Chromatic (note that the correct interval for your transposing instrument is already there as default since you created that instrument by the Setup Wizard and Finale knows it) and have just to click OK to confirm and close the dialogue boxes. Now your score has a real neutral key for your atonal music composition regardless of toggling Display in Concert Pitch on and off. If you need a more detailed information from my experience just contact me at jltaques@gmail.com for my pleasure. Not so young anymore but allegro sometimes! Taques “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”