musescore / musescore/MuseScore
The instrument "Sousaphone in B♭" is misleading
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Description
Your idea
There is an instrument called "Sousaphone in B♭" which is in bass clef and transposed up by an octave and a major 2nd. It should be renamed to "Sousaphone (Transposing Bass Clef)".
Problem to be solved
Sousaphonists who read transposed bass clef are part of an extreme minority. The most normal looking sousaphone instrument name in the list when you're making a new score is a transposing bass clef instrument. This trips up anyone new to Musescore who isn't familiar with playing sousaphone because when they bring that music to a sousaphonist, there's like a 99% chance it won't make any sense to the musician.
Prior art
No response
Additional context
Nearly all sousaphone players play an instrument pitched in B♭ and read concert pitch bass clef. Not transposed by an octave or a major 2nd. British brass band musicians, some American marching band musicians, and trumpet players who are learning the sousaphone but do no wish to learn bass clef, read treble clef transposed up by two octaves and a major 2nd. This accounts for "Sousaphone (concert pitch)" and "Sousaphone (treble clef) in B♭"
According to https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/2569, some European brass bands read a transposed bass clef part, which became "Sousaphone in B♭". I cannot find any published or unofficial music written this way. I cannot find anyone in the mixed-culture Seattle / PNW street band scene who is familiar with sousaphone parts written in this way. The only reason I'm bothering filing an issue for this is because the bands I'm in use Musescore and keep accidentally using the instrument and becoming disheartened when no one can read it.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start at MuseScore's instrument list and search for the exact entry "Sousaphone in B♭". Rename it to "Sousaphone (Transposing Bass Clef)" while preserving the separately described concert-pitch and treble-clef entries. Done means the new name appears when creating a score and distinguishes this transposition from the common concert-pitch option.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Domain
- content
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100