Hi Noel, your diagnosis was spot on and I am now able to proceed with my song. Two issues seem to be apparent in choosing a utility track for the melody though.

The first is that the note numbers I used to keep track of the notes relation to the chord or key on the OPT dialogue, is no longer displayed. I like to keep this as a check on the relevance of my notes during the first playing of the melody.

The second is the the option to change the key of the split in the piano keyboard is not remembered when the song is reloaded. These are fairly trivial though but it does seem that something is amiss with the use of utility tracks for this purpose. (or maybe just me again!)