Music's strangest rule: how transposing instruments work
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ธ.ค. 2023
- A look into the bizarre world of transposing instruments: what are transpositions and how do they work, why do they exist and a bit of a tangent about how orchestra conductors deal with transposing instruments.
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I’m a trumpet player.
A B flat trumpet player.
There are maybe four or five different trumpets that play different ranges. The higher I play beyond the range of my horn the closer the harmonics get, and the sloppier the trumpet will sound between notes. If the composer wants a trumpet sound that is clean and accurate then choose a trumpet that plays in a higher register.
I am so glad you are back!!! I love your channel! Great video! 🙂🙂🙂❤
thank you! :)
The baritone ukulele can be used as an automatic transposition instrument for the normal ukulele five half tones (perfect fourth) down… (when you like want to sing a bit lower)
Very clear, thanks !
I must say I never expected things to be that complicated, there's a lot more to music that what people like me think it seems. Thanks for the lovely explanation :)
Very interesting, thank you!
Very informative indeed!
Not a musician, but I had to learn it when it wanted to play classical music in minecraft noteblocks. It was very confusing,, but eventually I figured out the rule because it's the only way that make all instruments play in harmony.
this was so interesting to find out, thank you for commenting!
hahaha the things we do for minecraft
There’s also the crazy phenomenon of strings playing scordatura, where they tunes their strings differently for various reasons. Sometimes they tune the whole instrument up or down (and effectively become a transposing instrument), and something’s they just change some strings to facilitate whatever they are playing.
Some Biber sonatas for violin call for alternate tunings and the notes on the traditionally tuned strings are written like normal and the notes in the transposed strings are written as played (not as they sound). This approach makes it easy to play, but harder to determine what pitches you are playing since some notes don’t sound as written.
Music is pretty crazy sometimes 😅
Definitely some crazy stuff in our trade! Thanks for both comments, its very interesting what you mention about scordatura and the biber sonatas, it made me curious to check them out since I don't know them at all so thanks :)
My goodness, this is just the second of your videos I'm seeing and it is now confirmed I´m really in love with your style, subjects and definitely your nice explanations. I´m a musician and played trumpet in an symphonic orchestra in my youth, therefore I know very, very ... much the nightmare you are talking us about. 😏😄
Anna, you are one won-der-ful person ❤❤❤
I play modern band instruments which transpose (clarinet/saxophone) and recorder (which doesn’t transpose), I can say I’m very happy that modern instruments transpose (for the ease of switching between instruments). Having to learn new fingerings for each recorder was difficult at first.
When students who play transposing instruments learn scales/key signatures, they have to learn both the written name (F major scale) and the “concert pitch” name (Eb major concert), etc.
I will say that with recorders, it does make reading score easier because everything sounds as written. You can also play any part in the score on any recorder without having to sight transpose it (which can come in handy).
So there’s definitely pros and cons of each approach!
Great video. Just as a fun exercise, I sometimes try to make arrangements of classical orchestral pieces on guitar, and I also really enjoy reading scores because sometimes it helps me to notice things that I wouldn't have noticed, which is really cool. I think I'm probably not alone in sort of transposing things 'visually' from say 'F' to 'A' or G to B etc. as a shortcut. Once you know how many up/down based on the clef it's not so bad- but yeah, definitely wouldn't want to sightread it on the piano. Lol.
1) ive only heard the word "key" (or "scale") for what you call "tonality". I'm an american english speaker who is *not* a musician, but ive not heard it called "tonality" before. C major is a key, Dflat minor is a key, etc. 2) I think it's worth emphasizing more that the fundamental problem was that historical instruments simply were not capable of playing all the notes on a modern piano. it was a problem of physical engineering, the hardware to enable all modern notes simply didn't exist (valves etc). that's the core issue which is preserved thru to today. and ofc the second major problem was that just intonations essentially prevented transpositions between keys, as you mentioned, but intonations and temperaments is a whole other rabbithole... at any rate, i think the real, solid core of the issue is that early instruments physically had much fewer notes. only solving the physical hardware problems even enabled switching to equal temperament at all, without the hardware to enable all the notes we wouldn't be able to use equal temperament.
Hello! Good looking musical font! What is ?
Hi Ana, What is the difference between Mexican Ranchera songs that have (the first, the second and the third mode) compared to American music that only have (first and second mode) there is even American music that only have (the first mode ) and nothing else, in South America they call the music with (first and second) musica plana. and they call the American music with only (the first) musica lineal, What are the correct musical terms to name or explain this types of music. The composer of "Deep Breakfast" went to Europe to learn how to compose music using first, second, and third mode, when he came back to US he came out with DEEP BREAKFAST >> Deep Breakfast is Ray Lynch's third studio album, released on December 12, 1984. Vivaldi even uses 5 modes in his Four Seasons Work, oh That is Superb!!
underrated channel, could you show the graphics for a bit longer though?
i'm happy to be audience gang and not have to even comprehend any of this, lol