12 ms·

Transposing Instruments

75 points by camtarn 8y ago

mrleiter 8y ago
That‘s also the reason why orchestras usually play two to three pitches (e.g. C - B flat - E flat) before starting the concert, so that the conductor can determine if the relevant instruments are attuned to their respective pitch in harmony. Listen here: https://youtu.be/KfSH1ezevjM https://youtu.be/KfSH1ezevjM
- klez 8y ago
  In this case the pitch is given by the piano, but do I remember correctly that if the orchestra doesn't include a piano the base pitch is given by the oboe, as it's the hardest instrument to tune?
  - ken 8y ago
    I've never heard it said that the oboe is hard to tune. From what I've found, it's mostly historical accident that the oboe is used for tuning: https://www.rockfordsymphony.com/faqs/why-does-the-orchestra-always-tune-to-the-oboe/ https://www.rockfordsymphony.com/faqs/why-does-the-orchestra...
- bjoli 8y ago
  I have never heard any non-school orchestra do that. Professional orchestras ulonly give one note (a for symphonic and sometimes Bb for wind orchestras).
toolslive 8y ago
This is a really nice article. "usually ..... A is 440hz". The 'usually' here is an interesting topic by itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch Anyway, I do have some questions: - regarding the universalness of this. Is it (the transposing of instruments) like this everywhere or is it different in some parts of the world? (some things differ wildly, like the whole 'fixed-do' versus 'movable-do' thing. - If I look at a score written for an alto sax, How can I tell which note is meant ? - In jazz, people learn a standard in a certain key, and when that tune is called, it's called together with a key, usually to adapt to some constraint (like the singer's vocal range). The musicians mostly can adapt on-the-fly. Is there something similar in classical music ? (an example would be to transpose Beethoven's 9th from Dm to Em)
- klez 8y ago
  > If I look at a score written for an alto sax, How can I tell which note is meant ? If it's a part for an Alto sax you can usually assume it's in Eb.
- tomcam 8y ago
  1. Universality of transposition: These conventions apply wherever people use western instruments. 2. Alto sax is always in the key of E flat. That means the note called A flat played by an alto sax would be C on the piano. Likewise tenor is always in the key of B flat. A huge advantage to this arrangement is that the fingering is the same no matter which instrument you are playing; that means it is up to the composer to transpose notes as appropriate. The saxophone family is amazingly cohesive and consistent because Adolphe Sax invented it in one fell swoop. 3. Well-trained classical musicians can transpose at will. I read a story by the composer/pianist Andre Previn whose touring orchestra was late to a concert hall due to the bus driver getting lost. He was playing the piano in a concerto. What he didn’t know was that the entire piano had detuned up half a step. It meant that The moment he sat down to play a concerto in C minor he was therefore playing in C sharp minor. The orchestra caught this immediately and everyone transposed up for the rest of the concert – on the fly. Edit: I mysteriously screwed up keys of alto and tenor sax, both of which I play. Idiocy caught by klez and duly corrected.
  - klez 8y ago
    > Alto sax is always in the key of A flat. That means the note called A flat played by an alto sax would be C on the piano. Likewise tenor is always in the key of E flat. Uh? Alto sax is in Eb and tenor is in Bb.
    - tomcam 8y ago
      Thanks for the correction. I play sax. You are right of course. WTF is wrong with me?
  - toolslive 8y ago
    2. same fingering... So the C written conveys more a fingering than a pitch and the actual pitch depends on the instrument at hand. 3. Lovely anecdote, but wasn't it simpler if the pianist transposed ?
klez 8y ago
> The fundamental pitch of a brass instrument, on the other hand, is considered to be the fundamental of the harmonic series it plays when no valves are being used. For those who don't know how brass instruments work (and wonder how you can produce so many pitches with so little valves) this may sound a little confusing (a lot of people asked me, so I'll assume some people don't know). I'll take a trumpet as an example, as it is the instrument I'm most familiar with. First of all, you don't just blow air inside the instrument: you buzz your lips, as if you were making a sort of fart sound without using your tongue. Depending on the speed your lips vibrate at, you are able to make a series of pitches, which ones basically depend on the length of the instruments. The pitches you can make are part of an harmonic series, so basically (transposed from Bb) C, G, C, E, G and so on. Pressing the valves changes the length of the tubing so you can lower the note you're playing by a half step (middle, or second, valve), one step (rear or first valve) or one and a half step (forward or third valve). So by combining them you can obtain all the other pitches you may need. For example, suppose your lips are buzzing at a (written) G. You press the middle valve and get a F#, you press the first valve and you get an F, first and second (or just third) gives an E, second and third Eb, first and third D, all the valves Db, then you can vibrate your lips at a lower rate and release all the valves to get a C.
- amelius 8y ago
  What happens when your lips buzz at G, while the tube length is set to C?
  - matthewmacleod 8y ago
    Because the instruments have three valves, they are essentially a variable-length tube with a three-bit interface for choosing the length - so there are eight possible configurations, and two of them happen to result in the same tube length so there are seven selectable lengths. So if the length is set to “C” (that is, no valves pressed) and your lips buzz at “G” then you will be playing a “G”.
    - mannykannot 8y ago
adrianh 8y ago
To relate this to startups: my company Soundslice (https://www.soundslice.com/ https://www.soundslice.com/) makes interactive, web-based sheet music that can be instantly transposed for any transposing instrument. :-)
- ken 8y ago
  Transposition is easy for a computer. "MusicWriter" could do it back in the 1980's. And now it's available on the web, too! https://archive.org/details/a2gs_Music_Writer_Pro_1.42_1988_Pyware https://archive.org/details/a2gs_Music_Writer_Pro_1.42_1988_...
- burfog 8y ago
  I saw a slider for transposing. Don't you need two? One should change the pitch, and the other should change the notation. I tried yours, and it changed both pitch and notation at the same time. (listening to the synthetic sound) For music with multiple parts, it would be nice to transpose everything together in the most reasonable way. This would maintain relative pitch relationships, adjust the whole thing up or down to fit ranges of the players, transpose according to how the players will read music, and avoid excessive accidentals. A few alternatives could be offered: option 1 makes the trumpet player suffer really high notes, option 2 makes oboe player suffer lots of flats, etc.
monochromatic 8y ago
What a mess. Have there ever been any serious efforts toward “modernizing” musical notation?
- rewgs 8y ago
  It's really not a mess. It's a solution to a problem, and it works well. To give you an idea of how not-a-problem it is, many composers (myself included) prefer to read orchestral scores (so, a page will have roughly 15-20 staves) that are transposed. So, instead of reading each instrument in the same key, we see what each player is reading. If the concert key is C, I'll see the clarinets and trumpets reading in D, etc. I prefer it because you get a better sense of how the music feels to each individual player, and can better respond to any issues they're having. It's a mess to look at, I guess, but to any reasonably well trained musician, it's clear as day and conveys far more useful information than the "cleaner" way of seeing everyone in the same key, which really just obfuscates what's really going on.
  - thosakwe 8y ago
    Besides, the only reason different instruments are written in different keys is because that’s how they’re pitched. So if there even is a “problem,” that’s it.
  - matell 8y ago
    my guess is, the world of music theory seems like an epic mess to a novice due to the fact that it maintains full backward compatility and is instrument agnostic. e.g. there is a concept named "octave", but it actually consists if 12 intervals (on chromatic scale), and "mysteriously" there is no B# between B and C, and so on. it is like leaving types and pointers in every programming language, even if the lang is Ruby which is "typeless" and has garbage collector.
    - rewgs 8y ago
      I think that the problem is you're not learning in order -- like, if you learn functions before variables or data types, you're gonna be confused. Those things you mentioned actually make perfect sense when you arrive at them with the following assumptions/understandings: -Western music is founded (not limited to, but founded) on the concept of a "tonal center." -Western music is founded (again, not limited to, but certainly founded on) limiting the number of available pitches to those available in the equal temperament system, which is to say that the distance between the smallest internal, a half-step, is equal. This means that no tonal centers, or "keys," are favored by the tuning system. In the past certain keyboards might have been tuned to favor pieces written in G, for example. On a "G keyboard," a 5th from G to D would actually be a different number of cents than a 5th from, say, D to A (more on that in a moment). -Western music also tends to like returning to said tonal centers. Going away from it -- tension, and returning -- release. It's emotionally satisfying and, while I'm only really barely scratching the surface, this concept can explain a lot. With all this in mind, the "octave" thing makes sense, because for whatever reason, humans like to resolve to tonal centers in a similar fashion -- the basic culmination of all of this is a major key, which no matter what your tonal center is, can be created by starting at a note (let's say C for simplicity), and then counting up the following interval pattern: WWHWWWH, where W = whole step, and H = half step. Therefore, the key of C is C D E F G A B (and then C to complete the final half-step at the top, but we already said that tone so it doesn't need to be included -- but, C to C is 8 notes!). If the tonal center (or "tonic") is C#, then your major scale is spelled C# D# E# F# G# A# B#. This can answer your B/B#/C question: yes, from the "perspective" of a major scale in the key of C, which unfortunately is what most "layman" musicians tend to think of when they think of a scale due to where music education usually starts, then yes, no B# exists, and the "gap" seems in-congruent, inconsistent, a flaw in the system, like something was bolted on to make it work. But from the "perspective" of C#, then not only does a B# exist, but so does an E#! It's actually a very elegant and, I guess you could say, "self-correcting" system. The lack of a B# from the "C major perspective" is actually a fault of our tendency to start there, but is also an inevitable outcome of a system that is designed to treat all keys equally. If anything, Western music terminology has a "tonality" bias, which is true, and might be what you're running into and what is confusing you. Once you start really stretching the limits (but this stuff really isn't at all pertinent to this discussion, or really what most people would generally like to listen to...it tends to mostly exist in academic circles), the limitations of the terminology become obvious. But mostly, it perfectly reflects what the vast majority of our music is. The only thing I'm not quite getting from your post is bringing up backwards compatibility. I get the sense that you're trying to express a fuzzy concept and are arriving at the nearest programming terminology, but I'm not sure what that concept is. Backwards compatibility doesn't really make any sense in the context of harmony. If anything, it technically breaks backwards compatibility with music written before equal temperament was fully adopted, since music written using other tuning systems now sound slightly different. Can you try explaining what you mean by it more? Maybe I can help out.
memset 8y ago
One technique that is overlooked when transposing music - that maybe is interesting - is using clefs to transpose. Suppose I play alto sax (which I do!) and have sheet music written for a violin, in the concert key, in treble clef. If I want to transpose the music and play it on the sax, which is an Eb instrument, here's the trick: read the music as though it's written in soprano clef! A C in treble clef will be an A in soprano clef, which is indeed the correct transposition. Of course you still have to change your key signature. So if you can learn to be comfortable with a new clef, as was the standard when Bach was writing choral music, then this would be a great tool in the toolbox for transposing on the fly!
- delsarto 8y ago
  This works for trombones who might play in a brass band (where everything is Bb to ease moving between instruments). Read the treble clef in tenor clef (somewhat commonly used in orchestral settings for trombones) and 2 flats to the key signature (and use intuituion on accidentals :). Similarly can read Eb treble clef (e.g. baritone sax) parts in bass clef + 3 flats
sizzzzlerz 8y ago
I picked up the clarinet in 5th grade and played in school bands through college. I knew that it was a Bb instrument but was never taught what exactly that meant. I assume it was because my instructors never felt that it was important for their players to know. Since we always played off sheet music that was written for the specific instruments, that's probably true. It's nice to finally know.
gyuserbti 8y ago
Not understanding this. Why, for example, doesn't a clarinetist just play a C? I'm on mobile so I can't explain my question well, but: why isn't the transposed version just the default interpretation of the score? If clarinetists are playing bflat when the score says c, why not just play c? Is the implied point that the same 440 hz is interpreted differently because of quality, secondary frequencies etc?
- klez 8y ago
  Try doing that with a Eb instrument like an Alto sax and tell me how you like the fingering :) Also, as the article says, this allows players of an instrument that has different versions with different tunings (e.g. saxophones which can be in Eb or Bb depending on the type of saxophone) to learn one set of fingerings and being able to reproduce it on all tunings. So, for example, a written C is done by pressing all but the last button (iirc). By doing this you'll play a Bb on a tenor sax and an Eb on an alto, but with the score being transposed you'll know that when you see a note one line below the staff you'll have to put your fingers in that position regardless of the sax you're playing.
- systoll 8y ago
  It’s not about the sound, it’s about the mechanics of performance. On an alto sax, ‘A’ is 370Hz On a tenor sax, ‘A’ 237Hz But in both cases it’s the note you get when you close only the 2nd hole. Because of the transposing convention, if you take someone who can sight read, but is familiar only with the alto sax, and hand them a baritone sax and baritone sax sheet music... they’ll basically be fine. If all saxophone sheet music encoded A=440hz, they’d have to relearn which note on paper corresponds to which set of buttons. That said, the relationship between the instruments in a family is important, but the specific keys are a historical accident. In woodwinds specifically, the instruments that ‘won’ and remain common are mostly b-flat, with e-flat in second place. If we could take all existing woodwind sheet music and shift the notes up 3 semitones, we’d instead have ‘c’ and ‘g’ woodwinds, where ‘c’ meant it matches non-transposing instruments. We could start doing that now, but no-one’s really interested in making a breaking change.
nightcracker 8y ago
I can understand transposing whole octaves to limit the use of extra bars. Transposing anything other than that seems silly to me.
- klez 8y ago
  > Transposing anything other than that seems silly to me. You make it sound like it's done out of spite, or because musicians like unnecessarily complicated things. Reasons for this are given both in the article and in this thread. So having read those, why do you still think it's silly?
  - nightcracker 8y ago
    Because I'm not convinced that the benefits outweigh the downsides. Again, any excessively too high/low (part of a) piece you can transpose in octaves to get it within a reasonable level. Then everyone can read eachother's sheet music without having to adjust.

75 points by camtarn 8y ago

That‘s also the reason why orchestras usually play two to three pitches (e.g. C - B flat - E flat) before starting the concert, so that the conductor can determine if the relevant instruments are attuned to their respective pitch in harmony. Listen here: https://youtu.be/KfSH1ezevjM https://youtu.be/KfSH1ezevjM

klez 8y ago
In this case the pitch is given by the piano, but do I remember correctly that if the orchestra doesn't include a piano the base pitch is given by the oboe, as it's the hardest instrument to tune?
- ken 8y ago
  I've never heard it said that the oboe is hard to tune. From what I've found, it's mostly historical accident that the oboe is used for tuning: https://www.rockfordsymphony.com/faqs/why-does-the-orchestra-always-tune-to-the-oboe/ https://www.rockfordsymphony.com/faqs/why-does-the-orchestra...
bjoli 8y ago
I have never heard any non-school orchestra do that. Professional orchestras ulonly give one note (a for symphonic and sometimes Bb for wind orchestras).

toolslive 8y ago

This is a really nice article. "usually ..... A is 440hz". The 'usually' here is an interesting topic by itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch Anyway, I do have some questions: - regarding the universalness of this. Is it (the transposing of instruments) like this everywhere or is it different in some parts of the world? (some things differ wildly, like the whole 'fixed-do' versus 'movable-do' thing. - If I look at a score written for an alto sax, How can I tell which note is meant ? - In jazz, people learn a standard in a certain key, and when that tune is called, it's called together with a key, usually to adapt to some constraint (like the singer's vocal range). The musicians mostly can adapt on-the-fly. Is there something similar in classical music ? (an example would be to transpose Beethoven's 9th from Dm to Em)

klez 8y ago
> If I look at a score written for an alto sax, How can I tell which note is meant ? If it's a part for an Alto sax you can usually assume it's in Eb.
tomcam 8y ago
1. Universality of transposition: These conventions apply wherever people use western instruments. 2. Alto sax is always in the key of E flat. That means the note called A flat played by an alto sax would be C on the piano. Likewise tenor is always in the key of B flat. A huge advantage to this arrangement is that the fingering is the same no matter which instrument you are playing; that means it is up to the composer to transpose notes as appropriate. The saxophone family is amazingly cohesive and consistent because Adolphe Sax invented it in one fell swoop. 3. Well-trained classical musicians can transpose at will. I read a story by the composer/pianist Andre Previn whose touring orchestra was late to a concert hall due to the bus driver getting lost. He was playing the piano in a concerto. What he didn’t know was that the entire piano had detuned up half a step. It meant that The moment he sat down to play a concerto in C minor he was therefore playing in C sharp minor. The orchestra caught this immediately and everyone transposed up for the rest of the concert – on the fly. Edit: I mysteriously screwed up keys of alto and tenor sax, both of which I play. Idiocy caught by klez and duly corrected.
- klez 8y ago
  > Alto sax is always in the key of A flat. That means the note called A flat played by an alto sax would be C on the piano. Likewise tenor is always in the key of E flat. Uh? Alto sax is in Eb and tenor is in Bb.
  - tomcam 8y ago
    Thanks for the correction. I play sax. You are right of course. WTF is wrong with me?
- toolslive 8y ago
  2. same fingering... So the C written conveys more a fingering than a pitch and the actual pitch depends on the instrument at hand. 3. Lovely anecdote, but wasn't it simpler if the pianist transposed ?

klez 8y ago

> The fundamental pitch of a brass instrument, on the other hand, is considered to be the fundamental of the harmonic series it plays when no valves are being used. For those who don't know how brass instruments work (and wonder how you can produce so many pitches with so little valves) this may sound a little confusing (a lot of people asked me, so I'll assume some people don't know). I'll take a trumpet as an example, as it is the instrument I'm most familiar with. First of all, you don't just blow air inside the instrument: you buzz your lips, as if you were making a sort of fart sound without using your tongue. Depending on the speed your lips vibrate at, you are able to make a series of pitches, which ones basically depend on the length of the instruments. The pitches you can make are part of an harmonic series, so basically (transposed from Bb) C, G, C, E, G and so on. Pressing the valves changes the length of the tubing so you can lower the note you're playing by a half step (middle, or second, valve), one step (rear or first valve) or one and a half step (forward or third valve). So by combining them you can obtain all the other pitches you may need. For example, suppose your lips are buzzing at a (written) G. You press the middle valve and get a F#, you press the first valve and you get an F, first and second (or just third) gives an E, second and third Eb, first and third D, all the valves Db, then you can vibrate your lips at a lower rate and release all the valves to get a C.

amelius 8y ago
What happens when your lips buzz at G, while the tube length is set to C?
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Because the instruments have three valves, they are essentially a variable-length tube with a three-bit interface for choosing the length - so there are eight possible configurations, and two of them happen to result in the same tube length so there are seven selectable lengths. So if the length is set to “C” (that is, no valves pressed) and your lips buzz at “G” then you will be playing a “G”.
  - mannykannot 8y ago

adrianh 8y ago

To relate this to startups: my company Soundslice (https://www.soundslice.com/ https://www.soundslice.com/) makes interactive, web-based sheet music that can be instantly transposed for any transposing instrument. :-)

ken 8y ago
Transposition is easy for a computer. "MusicWriter" could do it back in the 1980's. And now it's available on the web, too! https://archive.org/details/a2gs_Music_Writer_Pro_1.42_1988_Pyware https://archive.org/details/a2gs_Music_Writer_Pro_1.42_1988_...
burfog 8y ago
I saw a slider for transposing. Don't you need two? One should change the pitch, and the other should change the notation. I tried yours, and it changed both pitch and notation at the same time. (listening to the synthetic sound) For music with multiple parts, it would be nice to transpose everything together in the most reasonable way. This would maintain relative pitch relationships, adjust the whole thing up or down to fit ranges of the players, transpose according to how the players will read music, and avoid excessive accidentals. A few alternatives could be offered: option 1 makes the trumpet player suffer really high notes, option 2 makes oboe player suffer lots of flats, etc.

monochromatic 8y ago

What a mess. Have there ever been any serious efforts toward “modernizing” musical notation?

rewgs 8y ago
It's really not a mess. It's a solution to a problem, and it works well. To give you an idea of how not-a-problem it is, many composers (myself included) prefer to read orchestral scores (so, a page will have roughly 15-20 staves) that are transposed. So, instead of reading each instrument in the same key, we see what each player is reading. If the concert key is C, I'll see the clarinets and trumpets reading in D, etc. I prefer it because you get a better sense of how the music feels to each individual player, and can better respond to any issues they're having. It's a mess to look at, I guess, but to any reasonably well trained musician, it's clear as day and conveys far more useful information than the "cleaner" way of seeing everyone in the same key, which really just obfuscates what's really going on.
- thosakwe 8y ago
  Besides, the only reason different instruments are written in different keys is because that’s how they’re pitched. So if there even is a “problem,” that’s it.
- matell 8y ago
  my guess is, the world of music theory seems like an epic mess to a novice due to the fact that it maintains full backward compatility and is instrument agnostic. e.g. there is a concept named "octave", but it actually consists if 12 intervals (on chromatic scale), and "mysteriously" there is no B# between B and C, and so on. it is like leaving types and pointers in every programming language, even if the lang is Ruby which is "typeless" and has garbage collector.
  - rewgs 8y ago
    I think that the problem is you're not learning in order -- like, if you learn functions before variables or data types, you're gonna be confused. Those things you mentioned actually make perfect sense when you arrive at them with the following assumptions/understandings: -Western music is founded (not limited to, but founded) on the concept of a "tonal center." -Western music is founded (again, not limited to, but certainly founded on) limiting the number of available pitches to those available in the equal temperament system, which is to say that the distance between the smallest internal, a half-step, is equal. This means that no tonal centers, or "keys," are favored by the tuning system. In the past certain keyboards might have been tuned to favor pieces written in G, for example. On a "G keyboard," a 5th from G to D would actually be a different number of cents than a 5th from, say, D to A (more on that in a moment). -Western music also tends to like returning to said tonal centers. Going away from it -- tension, and returning -- release. It's emotionally satisfying and, while I'm only really barely scratching the surface, this concept can explain a lot. With all this in mind, the "octave" thing makes sense, because for whatever reason, humans like to resolve to tonal centers in a similar fashion -- the basic culmination of all of this is a major key, which no matter what your tonal center is, can be created by starting at a note (let's say C for simplicity), and then counting up the following interval pattern: WWHWWWH, where W = whole step, and H = half step. Therefore, the key of C is C D E F G A B (and then C to complete the final half-step at the top, but we already said that tone so it doesn't need to be included -- but, C to C is 8 notes!). If the tonal center (or "tonic") is C#, then your major scale is spelled C# D# E# F# G# A# B#. This can answer your B/B#/C question: yes, from the "perspective" of a major scale in the key of C, which unfortunately is what most "layman" musicians tend to think of when they think of a scale due to where music education usually starts, then yes, no B# exists, and the "gap" seems in-congruent, inconsistent, a flaw in the system, like something was bolted on to make it work. But from the "perspective" of C#, then not only does a B# exist, but so does an E#! It's actually a very elegant and, I guess you could say, "self-correcting" system. The lack of a B# from the "C major perspective" is actually a fault of our tendency to start there, but is also an inevitable outcome of a system that is designed to treat all keys equally. If anything, Western music terminology has a "tonality" bias, which is true, and might be what you're running into and what is confusing you. Once you start really stretching the limits (but this stuff really isn't at all pertinent to this discussion, or really what most people would generally like to listen to...it tends to mostly exist in academic circles), the limitations of the terminology become obvious. But mostly, it perfectly reflects what the vast majority of our music is. The only thing I'm not quite getting from your post is bringing up backwards compatibility. I get the sense that you're trying to express a fuzzy concept and are arriving at the nearest programming terminology, but I'm not sure what that concept is. Backwards compatibility doesn't really make any sense in the context of harmony. If anything, it technically breaks backwards compatibility with music written before equal temperament was fully adopted, since music written using other tuning systems now sound slightly different. Can you try explaining what you mean by it more? Maybe I can help out.

memset 8y ago

One technique that is overlooked when transposing music - that maybe is interesting - is using clefs to transpose. Suppose I play alto sax (which I do!) and have sheet music written for a violin, in the concert key, in treble clef. If I want to transpose the music and play it on the sax, which is an Eb instrument, here's the trick: read the music as though it's written in soprano clef! A C in treble clef will be an A in soprano clef, which is indeed the correct transposition. Of course you still have to change your key signature. So if you can learn to be comfortable with a new clef, as was the standard when Bach was writing choral music, then this would be a great tool in the toolbox for transposing on the fly!

delsarto 8y ago
This works for trombones who might play in a brass band (where everything is Bb to ease moving between instruments). Read the treble clef in tenor clef (somewhat commonly used in orchestral settings for trombones) and 2 flats to the key signature (and use intuituion on accidentals :). Similarly can read Eb treble clef (e.g. baritone sax) parts in bass clef + 3 flats

sizzzzlerz 8y ago

I picked up the clarinet in 5th grade and played in school bands through college. I knew that it was a Bb instrument but was never taught what exactly that meant. I assume it was because my instructors never felt that it was important for their players to know. Since we always played off sheet music that was written for the specific instruments, that's probably true. It's nice to finally know.

gyuserbti 8y ago

Not understanding this. Why, for example, doesn't a clarinetist just play a C? I'm on mobile so I can't explain my question well, but: why isn't the transposed version just the default interpretation of the score? If clarinetists are playing bflat when the score says c, why not just play c? Is the implied point that the same 440 hz is interpreted differently because of quality, secondary frequencies etc?

klez 8y ago
Try doing that with a Eb instrument like an Alto sax and tell me how you like the fingering :) Also, as the article says, this allows players of an instrument that has different versions with different tunings (e.g. saxophones which can be in Eb or Bb depending on the type of saxophone) to learn one set of fingerings and being able to reproduce it on all tunings. So, for example, a written C is done by pressing all but the last button (iirc). By doing this you'll play a Bb on a tenor sax and an Eb on an alto, but with the score being transposed you'll know that when you see a note one line below the staff you'll have to put your fingers in that position regardless of the sax you're playing.
systoll 8y ago
It’s not about the sound, it’s about the mechanics of performance. On an alto sax, ‘A’ is 370Hz On a tenor sax, ‘A’ 237Hz But in both cases it’s the note you get when you close only the 2nd hole. Because of the transposing convention, if you take someone who can sight read, but is familiar only with the alto sax, and hand them a baritone sax and baritone sax sheet music... they’ll basically be fine. If all saxophone sheet music encoded A=440hz, they’d have to relearn which note on paper corresponds to which set of buttons. That said, the relationship between the instruments in a family is important, but the specific keys are a historical accident. In woodwinds specifically, the instruments that ‘won’ and remain common are mostly b-flat, with e-flat in second place. If we could take all existing woodwind sheet music and shift the notes up 3 semitones, we’d instead have ‘c’ and ‘g’ woodwinds, where ‘c’ meant it matches non-transposing instruments. We could start doing that now, but no-one’s really interested in making a breaking change.

nightcracker 8y ago

I can understand transposing whole octaves to limit the use of extra bars. Transposing anything other than that seems silly to me.

klez 8y ago
> Transposing anything other than that seems silly to me. You make it sound like it's done out of spite, or because musicians like unnecessarily complicated things. Reasons for this are given both in the article and in this thread. So having read those, why do you still think it's silly?
- nightcracker 8y ago
  Because I'm not convinced that the benefits outweigh the downsides. Again, any excessively too high/low (part of a) piece you can transpose in octaves to get it within a reasonable level. Then everyone can read eachother's sheet music without having to adjust.