Tip #23 - Tab lines have hidden key signature, set this before transposing

The key signature of treble and bass lines is obvious because you can see the sharps and flats at the beginning of the staff. Although it's not as obvious because there's no way to show it, in MusEdit Tab lines also have a key signature.

Try this: enter a Tab line and put a few fingering digits on it close to the beginning. Now select Insert|Key Signature (Ctrl+Alt+K). The dialog should open with the key sig. set to the key of C. This is the current key sig. of the tab line. Change the key to E (four sharps) and hit OK. You'll notice that the fingering digits will shift a bit to the right. This is to keep the tab lined up with the music on any treble staff which might be nearby and also in the key of E (the music in that line will be shifted to the right to make room for the four sharps at the start of the line). If you now set the key signature of the Tab line again, the dialog will open starting with the key of E, because that is the current key of the Tab line. This is a good way to check the key of a Tab line.

The main reason you would want to set the key signature of the Tab line correctly is if you intend to transpose a tab line to a different key. If you have Tab for a Blues in E, for example, and you want to transpose it to the key of C, you have to first tell MusEdit that the tab line is in the key of E because it has to know how many musical steps everything has to be shifted to change it to the key of C.

In fact you can tell MusEdit the key of the Tab line from the Transpose dialog by setting the correct key in the part where it says:

Tab and Chord Lines...
Assumed key of line(s): C / Am

You would change the C / Am (which MusEdit determined by checking the key sig. of the tab line) to E / C#m , but it would be more musically accurate to set the key of the tab line initially. After the transposition the Tab line is assigned the new (transposed) key.

Finally, in case you've wondered why you never had to set the key of a tab line when it is paired in a group with other treble lines, the fact is that when you set the key of any line in a group MusEdit will set all lines in the group to the same new key. Chances are you would always set the key of the treble line -and then the tab was set automatically by MusEdit.

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