Multiple key signatures

You can create a score in which each staff has a different key signature. Note that the presence of multiple simultaneous key signatures isn’t the same thing as establishing staves for transposing instruments (trumpet and clarinet, for example), in which various staves are notated in different keys but, in fact, all sound in the same key. To find out how to handle transposing instruments—for which Finale correctly changes the key signature automatically—see Transposing instruments.

To create multiple simultaneous key signatures

1. Click the Staff tool  , and double-click the first staff whose key you want to make independent. The Staff Attributes dialog box for the selected staff appears.
2. Choose Independent Elements > Key Signature. You have to click this checkbox for each staff that will be in an independent key. If you have several staves to prepare this way, don’t exit the Staff Attributes dialog box; choose the next staff from the drop-down list menu at the top of the dialog box.
3. Click OK (or press ENTER). You return to the document. If you now click the Key Signature tool, a handle appears on every measure that you’ve “enabled” to have an independent key signature. To change the key signature for an “independent key signature” staff, click the Key Signature Tool, and then double-click a measure of the staff. The dialog box appears so that you can set the key in the usual way.

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