Orchestration Question 11: Transposing Instruments
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ธ.ค. 2017
- Why transposing instruments shouldn't read in C, and why I prefer to read transposing rather than in C - excerpted from "100 Orchestration Tips."
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As an aspiring music educator, finding this channel has been a blessing to me. Thank you so much for your wonderful videos!
Thanks so much for your kind words! I'm glad to hear that my online resources have proved useful.
Usually when scoring at the computer i first set my Notation programm to Notate in "Concert pitch" (because i'm horrible at reading transposing instruments😂) but once i'm done with the piece, i set it back to "Transposing Pitches" and then sometimes adjust the clefs in the Horn parts if needed...
Anyways, I think i'll go and practice reading transposing scores...:)
Same for me. I mean it isn't so bad for Bb clarinet or octave transposition but with F transposition for horns, I don't bother with mentally transposing it and simply set it to concert pitch in Musescore.
Bagpipes are in C♯
I’m sorry
I feel sorry for anybody that ever had to compose for the bagpipes
I know it comes about from tradition, but they can only really Play in the key of their D major for them. So in a perfect world, they could be e flat instruments and use a transposition system that most musicians are familiar with. But alas, we can only dream
It's interesting to notice once all musicians underwent also at least some composition training, and it was common to be able not only to read all clefs, but also to pick up untransposed parts and playing them on instruments built in different tonalities (i.e.: recorders in C, in F or even in G) by adjusting the fingering patterns to what was written on the score. Sort of the reverse of what happens in nowadays' practice, but as both a composition student and an amateur early wind player I've eventually also started assimilating this method too.
I would say having a background in composition will always give you the necessary flexibility in every musical field.
strictly piano player here. 5:48 was the "A-Ha!" moment for me.
I spent my teen years without PC in time when notation software wasn't so popular as today so I learnt how to read the transposing parts. Even when I started to use software I still prefer to see the parts in the key the player sees them. As a composer it's my way to feel where the player changes the register for example (which I struggle to do in real time if I read concert pitch).
Note that sometimes instruments being in a different key is just a state of mind.
For example, if you play an E on a Bb soprano clarinet, it will result in a concert D.
However, if you use the *same fingering* and play an E on an Eb alto clarinet, it will result in a concert G.
Differently, if you play a C on a C soprano recorder, it will result in a concert C.
However, if you use the *same fingering* on an F alto recorder, you will be playing an F on that recorder, which is a concert F. Note that transposition to the key of C is not needed because it's already done with different fingerings.
Both of these families of instruments approach the correlation between fingerings and the note in their key in a different manner. Most instruments follow the clarinet example.
Note to all composers:
For clarinet it is becoming much more common for players to use the Eb and D clarinet, like the Bb and A clarinets. Please write accordingly .
However, for basset Horn and lower, only one member of each clarinet range should be expected;
Bass clarinets in A do exist.., all 40 of them
I was under the impression that the D Clarinet is no longer common enough to write for.
Thanks for another brilliant video Thomas! :)
Off-topic, I'm so curious what that gorgeous piece is at 4:18... the dovetailing of the woodwinds is seamless!
Very clean lesson on a confusing topic. Thanks Thomas!
Thank you, Mr. Goss.
Both when orchestrating or conducting I always prefer transposed scores to see what the players see. In Filmscoring though the C-scores are more or less standard now, so everybody can quickly read it.
I am personally not entirely happy about it, for instance reading F-Horns in concert pitch is more confusing for me than in transposed notation.
Coming from the piano as well by the way.
It really depends, though - I recently had the players of the Moscow Phil record a film score for an anime that I orchestrated for another composer, and the conductor wanted the score WITH key sigs in transposing. So there are some things becoming standard, but not always the rule.
I think it would make more sense if there was a separate clef when transposing rather than using treble or bass or whatever and just arbitrarily saying that a certain note is C
There is .... soprano clef, tenor clef and alto clef.
That would be way more complicated
This was a very effective explanation. Thank you!
5:342 you put F6 in the piano but is F5 (to trick us I think). Great videos!
Exactly! Composition is not just about writing out notes! It is as much, if not even more, about understanding each instrument part, and getting into the mind of each performer.
A big part of that is understanding, not only the instrumental ranges, but the timbral registers, which fingerings are performable and sound right, and so forth. *_All of those considerations are decided by the transposition of the instrument_* ! The transposition is fundamental.
(Saxophonist, contra/bassoonist, classical guitarist, occasional violist, and some-time composer speaking.)
Two things I’ve found that can help composition, especially vertical harmony are:
1. First and foremost think in key-relative pitch. The key signature at the beginning of each line can help a lot on that. That as opposed to trying to redraw in your mind concert pitch.
2. If you’re working with composition software, and it can accommodate you, have it color-code the transposition of that line. For example, show all Bb instruments in a maroon color, and all F instruments in dark blue, say.
Very interesting, and well explained, although I have to admit, the only argument that worked for me was the part in which a composer should be able to read scores written in the last 300 years(towards the end of the video), the reasons are obvious. However, the rest, torture,as someone else said :))
I come from a math, computer programming background, composing being just a hobby for now, so attempting to read in multiple keys seems like adding apples and chairs to me, and also plain redundant, since learning everything(ranges, timbres, etc) in concert and then transposing when the work is done is way more appealing. It's like 2 things happening twice(both the composer and the player learning reading in different keys) with the same result, hence the redundancy..I hope that made sense to some extent, at least.
I get where trained musicians come from, though, and I'm trying (gotten better at reading the clarined and horn :D yay), it's just it doesn't work so much for me.
Thank you for the explanations, great video, as always!
I suppose I'm on the opposite extreme. I want everything scored in concert pitch so that I can see where the doublings are, who has which chord tone, whether the chord tones are fully covered in a given section of instruments or not, etc. For range issues I keep a "cheat sheet" handy showing where the characteristics of each instrument lie. (I know them -- I made the cheat sheet myself -- but it simplifies the analysis.) For technical passages, I'll often just pick up an instrument and sight-transpose to make sure it all works. I am also choosing my clefs to make that process as painless as possible -- bass clarinet or tenor saxophone gets an octave-transposed treble clef, for instance, so the discrepancy between written and sounding is only a second, not a ninth. Baritone saxophone goes in the bass clef for the easiest sight transposition of all. Really, the only instruments that don't slot neatly into this are alto saxophone (and other E♭ alto instruments) and F horns.
Of course it helps that I actually have a degree of competence on every instrument you'd find in a wind ensemble, and the strings and harp don't have these transposition problems (except the bass, but an octave is a trouble-free transposition so I just write them the way they'll read it).
The parts will, of course, be in the correct transposition, and I will gladly provide the score in either concert pitch or transposed, or both. They have different strengths: a concert pitch score makes it easier to analyze the piece and see what the ensemble is doing as a whole, but a transposed score is required to easily see what each player is doing at any given moment.
The only argument I've heard so far (including in this video) for having transpositions is "we are used to it being this way". We're quite overdue in switching the scores to concert pitch. If it's that hard for players to learn to read in C, let them extract parts in whatever transposition they wish.
+Zarg
As soon as music gets read from iPads instead of paper (already happening in non-orchestral gigs), then the question of how to write parts will be very much academic because the performer can read whatever transposition they want, with or without 8vas, at whatever size they prefer. We'll need a common interchange format for doing this (not PDF, something that retains the actual note data), but that may end up being MuseScore because it's free.
Good and useful information
Can I send you my score to one of compositions, I want to know how to improve, I only started recently
Here's the problem I have with transposition: I used to play the violin, on which each string has different fingerings to get the same notes (since they are separated by intervals of fifths), so I got used to having different fingerings. AND: When I play a note to match what is written in a part, a different note comes out, my brain immediately alarms and says this is wrong. (After all, a violinist that DIDN'T do that would never be able to be very good. Not that I was ever any good, mind you.)
After many years of trying hard to hear music played in different pitch standards properly, I have managed to stretch the range just enough so that I can accept the A above middle C (standard 440 Hz) as being in the range 400 Hz to 453 Hz. Anything outside that, and my brain kicks the pitch interpretation to the next convenient half step or whole step up or down. As a workaround for listening to organ music played in choirton (to an approximation, A above middle C = 467 Hz), I have to accept the music as sounding in a different key from how it is labeled. For instance, I have to be content to hear a Bach Organ Concerto in D minor as being in E minor if it is played on an organ tuned in choirton. Before I managed to make the above adjustment, I used to have to accept period instrument performances (normally in kammerton, A above middle C = 415 Hz) as being a semitone flatter than labeled (for instance, with a 33 rpm vinly record of Mozart sonatas for violin and piano, played on period instruments, I thought for sure that the recording had been made at the wrong rotational speed, until after a few years I finally found the mention of A above middle C being 415 Hz, which was buried in the fine print of the liner notes). So if I ever were to attempt to learn a transposing instrument(*), I would be stuck with the worst of both worlds, having to learn different fingerings for each size, AND having to transpose the parts from their transposed pitch into concert pitch.
(*)Which would probably result in the neighbors thinking I was torturing some animal -- mind you, a violin can be even worse for that.
This goes with my general thinking, pianists generally find transposition non-sensical but can get along with it. Highly trained string players find it even harder to make sense of because they are even more used to putting different fingers, maybe even on different strings to produce the same printed note. They are note centred, whereas wind players effectively see a series of notes as a set of fingering instructions. Occasionally wind players may have a choice of fingerings, but very rarely. Only thing I can suggest is looking at Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola in the original score where he directs the viola to tune a semitone higher and writes it in D whilst everything else is in Eb. Getting your head around that will greatly help you get your head around wind/brass transpositions. As explained in this great video it is about enabling the player to pick any instrument in the family in whatever key it is in and be able to play it.
@@lipkinasl Niccolo Paganini also did this in his Violin Concerto #1, with the solo violin tuned a semitone high and playing in D>B>D and everything else playing in Eflat>C>Eflat: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_No._1_(Paganini) -- again, this was primarily for the purpose of making the solo violin sound more brilliant.
Since I play alone, I routinely pick up music scored in C Major and play as written.
I should learn sight transposition.
What I find peculiar is that there are families of instruments that come in multiple keys, but *are* always written in C. Like how tubas come in Bb, C, Eb, and F, but at least in an orchestral context are never transposed. Recorders, too, though I suspect their notational practices have something to do with being able to read from choral music, sounding up the octave.
Alex Kindel I’m pretty sure tubas reading in C has to do with having so many different tubas in an orchestral setting. It’s much easier to have one part in concert than to produce four parts for every piece.
However in brass bands tuba parts are generally in Bb (but there might also be Eb I’m not too experienced)
Of course, then you have the clarinets, which at least used to come in C, D, Eb, F, A, and Bb, all transposed. I suppose the difference there is that composers write for specific sizes of clarinet, but not specific keys of tuba. I wonder if there's a good reason for that discrepancy.
+Alex Kindel
Standardization, or a lack thereof. All those clarinets (and you forgot the high A♭ clarinet, and there are also G clarinets both above and below the standard B♭) were necessary way back when because of the limited keywork available, as well as for their unique timbres. Playing in distant keys was a real problem - and one that is still not completely solved on woodwinds. The Boehm system is an improvement, but still not perfect. Trumpets and horns were even worse in this respect until the invention of valves that worked worth a damn around 1815, which is why they had to either be duplicated or crooked for every key.
Tubas were evolving well into the romantic period, and even up to the mid-20th century. When the goalposts keep moving like that, it makes more sense to just let the players sort it out. The same logic applies for bass trombones, which didn't settle on their "big tenor with triggers" configuration until the 20th century. Previously, they came in G and F as well, with a handle on the slide to allow the low positions to be used. This is why brass bands have them written at actual pitch in the bass clef while the tenor trombones are written as treble clef B♭ instruments. E♭ basses are written in treble clef, transposed, just like the bigger B♭ basses. _Everything_ in the brass band is, except the percussion and the bass trombone.
Horns sort of get the worst of all worlds when it comes to transposition. They're written as transposing instruments in F, but most players use double horns that have a B♭ side. Descant doubles or full triples can have the descant side in either E♭ or F in addition to that. However, other than natural horn (which is a niche specialty), there are no longer parts written for horns not in F, and most everything that was has been transposed and re-published by now. Still, the player has to know a set of fingerings for each side of the horn, or (as I learned) just treat the trigger side as a fourth valve and incorporate it into the fingering pattern without thinking too much about which side of the horn you're on - except when stopping or muting, because the F side shifts by a nice, workable semitone while the B♭ side shifts by a rather less workable quarter tone.
I didn't forget the Ab and G clarinets, but rather chose to limit myself to the ones I've actually seen used in scores. The existence of a high G instrument is new to me though.
As far as having different-keyed instruments for playing in different keys goes, is it any worse a problem on clarinets than on flutes and oboes? Flutes in C, Db, Eb, F, G, A, and Bb all technically exist, but scoring for different keys of flute to facilitate different keys of music has never been in vogue as far as I can tell. I wouldn't think the timbre issue, however big or small it might be, would be less applicable to other woodwinds either. Maybe having a twelfth worth of holes rather than only an octave makes all the difference.
Is the idea with standardization that while the tuba and trombone evolved in an unorganized way, the clarinet family was necessarily designed as a matching set to begin with?
The situation with horns would especially bother me if for some reason there were ever cause to write for a single horn in Bb - an unequivocally Bb-pitched instrument but still, I assume, to be written for in F.
Is the idea with the trombones that they would read directly off the choral parts rather than having dedicated parts of their own? If so, that's similar to my theory on why recorders are all written in C with the clefs they are.
i start to see your videos (im espanish boy who wants to become a composer, sorry for my english ) i was thinkin that this channel was death but no! thank you, best program to compose? im using musescore is ok?
MuseScore es gratis y es mejor que nada.
As a singer, I primarily use solfege so relative pitch is what I do best; clefs, transpositions, and even passages with double flats and such have been pretty easy (after years and years of dedicated sight reading practice via solfege), because I can ignore them to some extent.
Regardless of your approach, you need a LOT of practice in reading, so yeah, get on it.
Ties are used in various forms of Music. For Example the Melismatic Alleluias in Jesus Christ is Risen Today (EASTER HYMN) and the Glorias in Angels we have Heard on Hugh (Gloria, Barnes arrangements). Some church bodies have orchestrate abd often Christmas Eve and EASTER When these hymns are sung. Some church groups just have trumpeters only). Can you do an Orchestration of the Worship Service lecture.?
Sorry to nitpick, but at 4:00 that's a Bb Bass Trumpet
I feel like it should be left to the conductors score, as C pitch and concert pitch should be there for the convenience of the conductor
it hurts my head if i read transposing scores
Any muscle tends to ache the first time you exercise it, including mental muscles. That will eventually go away the more you demand of your brain.
i meant like, it doesn’t literally hurt my head, it just messs with my brain a lot
I find the choice of recommending learning D transposition before G to be somewhat...interesting. I've come across alto flute parts a *lot* more than D clarinet ones.
Good for you, Jim! Whereas I've found that a lot of late Romantic and early 20th-century massive scoring to use D trumpet and clarinet more than alto flute - or at least as much. And then there are all the D trumpet parts in classical era symphonies. It's really barely a concern which goes first, though - because you have to assume that by the time a composer has mastered Bb, F, Eb, and A transpositions, they'll find it simple to adjust to D and G simultaneously.
> you have to assume that by the time a composer has mastered Bb, F, Eb, and A transpositions, they'll find it simple to adjust to D and G simultaneously
Yeah that's definitely true. By that point it hardly matters at all.
Still, I definitely find it interesting that there'd be more D parts than G. I guess I've looked at a lot more band scores with less-than-standard orchestration than orchestral scores.
If you play jazz or possibly theater music, you will see alto more than in orchestral music. It is being scored more often now but still isn't a widely used, hell it is barely in a lot of upper wind ensemble music,
But why is it always treble clef transposing? I know the contrabass transposes down an octave but down an octave is very clean, so why no less nice transposals in bass?
You may have missed the point that the treble staff is not a grid of white keys + black accidentals when you're a wind player. Instead, the treble staff is a chart of fingerings and register changes. So that all auxiliary instruments may be equally playable and readable, we simply apply the same chart to the transposing pitches. What you propose is convenient for you, but annoying to wind players.
Not sure if your question is that only treble clef transposes, but bass clef transposes too like the double bass and contrabasoon
do woodwind brass players who transpose ever read bass clef? or for that matter alto, tenor mezzo baritone soprano clefs? (viola player)@@OrchestrationOnline
@@clement2780 None of these clefs (except bass and occasionally tenor) are needed in writing for winds and brass, because the fingering schemes of the instruments are ALREADY centred around the ideal pitches of each home clef. Some instruments use bass clef with a little tenor for their upper registers, like trombones and bassoons - and alto trombone uses alto clef, but is rarely scored today. Bass clarinet used to be scored in bass clef transposing - and while you should train yourself to read that, by no means should you score your bass clarinet parts in anything but treble clef today.
I understand the appeal of respecting traditions and the experience of the players, but transposing instruments is still an archaic barrier of entry for newer composers. If we were to start completely over with musical notation, this would be the first thing on the chopping block.
I found the pianist!
I think at 3:45 the Bass trumpet in E flat should be sounding down a Major 6th, not minor 6th.
Every instrument in that row sounds down a Major 6th. There's nothing indicating that bass trumpet should sound down a minor 6th on the diagram, nor would I ever intentionally make that error.
don't worry, your video is good.
Harps are Tuned in C-sharp-flat
C-flat I think you mean, with all pedals up.
Queria legenda em portugues....
I personally am not a fan of C conductor’s scores, personally, other than for comparatively-near transpositions, especially Bb instruments.
When you’re talking about F or Eb instruments, for example, you’ll either have oodles of ledger lines, or an obscure and unexpected clef for that instrument, neither of which are any easier to read than the transposed part.
Score should be in C, parts transposed. Which is the norm these days
May somebody tell me the name of the piece at 4:18?
Looking for that too friend ! If you have the info please let me know ;)
Myaskovsky symphony no. 11
Small correction, Bass Trombone in a British Brass Band reads in Bass Clef and does not transpose.
Sure. I didn't say it didn't. :)
So why don't recorders transpose?
Ah, but recorder parts are a mishmosh of different octave transpositions (like tenor parts have the same written range as sopranos, etc.) - and in the olden days, recorders did transpose according to Michael Praetorius. Probably because of the lack of mechanical fingering systems forcing most effective compositions to embrace the most accessible keys - which in turn removes the necessity for transposed home keys, as most recorders are in C or F.
Glad to be a trombone 😂
Ameno
why horns are always in f? trumpets in d? oboe damore A , alto flute g
Horns aren't always in F. Go score-read Baroque to Romantic scores. You'll see that natural horns are tuned in many different pitches to suit the key of of each movement. And today's horns may be written as "Horn in F," but they're almost always played on double horns that also have a B-flat tuning. Instruments are pitched in different keys so that the bore lengths result in different registers. Go read my other comment, but even if you don't, the video answers all your questions.
should todays arrangers composers always write in F or in relative pitch? (Horns in G, Es, As, D, etc?)@@OrchestrationOnline
@@clement2780 You may write your scores in concert pitch, especially if they are intended for recording of film/TV cues - but you're robbing your brain of the easy comprehension of tens of thousands of orchestral scores if you yourself cannot transpose at sight. I write all of my concert music in transposed pitches - that way I write and see what the players will see on the page.
2:07 I don't understand. This part in concert pitch bass clef literally fits better than treble clef F transposition. Why can't horn players read bass and alto clefs in concert pitch? Cellists do that all the time, and you know that.
Because the horn is already the hardest instrument in the entire orchestra to play. And they do read bass clef already, in both old and new notation. But go ahead, give your horn section parts in alto clef concert pitch and insist that they play them that way or else they're not really musicians, and see how that helps your career.
TIL horn players are allergic to alto clef
@@garrysmodsketches it may be helpful for you to check out the natural horn, and especially how composers such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven used transposition across treble and bass clef to write for it in a way that made the most sense 🙂 we're essentially still playing the same instrument (most of my warmup routine is natural horn technique), and it really is the best way of mechanically understanding how the horn works. Using the alto clef might seem like a good approach in theory (and indeed, I've been asked to sightread it on church gigs etc.) but it really does not match the physicality of performing on an instrument that is already required to read treble, new notation bass, and old notation bass in a dozen transpositions in the standard repertoire. One of my composition teachers once said "for better or for worse, orchestral musicians dedicate their lives to performing music in the style of dead white guys", and the further you stray from those general notational principles, the less equipped professional players who have dedicated their lives to their craft will be to interpret your music. Even if one does not feel comfortable transposing themselves, it makes much more sense for them to make use of the transpose features in notation software than risk having their music performed sub-optimally, or not at all.
Why... why... do ppl this... one or two is just never enough is it..!!?? I'm dying here trying to learn this without ever even having seen these in real life!!
why dont clarinet horn players read alto clef?
Watch the video, it literally answers all your questions. Stop thinking like a pianist when you approach transposing instruments. For wind and brass players, the treble and bass clefs aren't reference points relevant to the same pitches as a piano (except for some instruments in C, like bassoon, flute, and oboe). Rather, the clefs are guideposts to fingering patterns - and when those players pick up instruments of the same instrument families pitched up or down in different keys, the fingerings will be the same relevant to the clefs. Your job as a professional orchestrator, or even just as a student composer, is not to complain about all these different systems and attempt to change the world so that everyone reads their parts in C just to make things easier for you. Your job is to become familiar with these systems and apply yourself so that they're all easy to comprehend. If hundreds of thousands of score-readers can do this, then so can you.
If the player does not wish to double on the auxiliary instruments say in jazz, e.g.the player only plays tenor sax, writing in concert would sure make life easier for a composer. It sounds like tradition seems to be the strong point on this subject. I still think that reading a transposed score represents a torture at first since what you see is not what it is then your brain will have make many turns until it decodes the music.
Most jazz players read comfortably in concert pitch, even if they play a couple of horns.
Sharma Yelverton thanks, good to know it.
What I've seen, Sharma, is some jazz players transposing key changes from charts, and some bits of melody. But I've also seen many many charts in transposed keys for the convenience of the players. So I think it's a mixture rather than a dependable rule.
+OrchestrationOnline
I agree with this. Drop a lead sheet in concert pitch in front of me, sure, no problem, let's go. But try doing that with a big band sax section and you're going to get garbage. (Exception: baritone sax and bass clef, just about the easiest sight transposition around.)
I only made it through the first 4:20 of this video. I disagree with your premise that the strength of the association between written pitch and fingering is as prohibitive to learning auxiliaries as you suggest, and that the "mental arithmetic" you allude to as being a burden is just a matter of mindset. The world could totally have chosen to read everything in concert pitch, and the idea of writing transposed parts, let alone scores, may have seemed ludicrous.
My background is in piano, voice, and trombone, so I found it much easier to start by thinking of all the other instruments I have picked up in concert pitch: bass clef euphonium, tenor horn, trumpet, bugles, alto sax, bass clarinet...
This said, this poses some difficulties in reading sheet music for the transposing instruments, but that's an issue I choose to grapple with. But being able to read high euphonium music on tenor horn, in bass clef, ledger lines and all, is no problem. I learned what fingerings correspond to what notes on the Eb horn.
I guess what I take real issue with is the dismissal of the "other side". You're passing off the status quo as the only obvious choice, and it's irritating as someone who does it differently as a performer.
What you claim about the world choosing to read everything in concert pitch may or may not be so - but the fact remains that huge bulk of orchestral scores are written for transposing instruments, and learning the trick of reading and understanding them is not all that hard. Don't give up on it, keep at it.
or we could just write for strings flutes oboes bassoons
Just wanted to say I'm so used to reading transposing scores I find C-scores really confusing, especially as I'm a horn player. And I can't make what I see in the horn parts correlate to what I am hearing at all!
Hmm... I still think that's a bit of a cop-out. String players who play multiple instruments don't transpose, they have to learn the new fingerings. If you want to switch from viola to violin, you have to learn new fingerings. If you want to switch between Renaissance and Baroque lute, you have to learn new fingerings. I don't 100% understand wind instruments, but I feel like they should still be taught in concert pitch because it makes it easier for them to read parts for other instruments, and vice versa. A C on a Bb trumpet and an Eb trumpet are not the same note. So why call it that? I find this often has more detriment on the wind players, if they're a single instrumentalist, they don't always understand what transposing is, they just do it. So if I hand a Bb trumpet player an Eb clarinet piece, they're going to play it in the wrong key unless they can transpose on the fly. Which, of course, you can learn, but I feel like that's such an unnecessary complication for everyone. Either every good musician has to learn that, or no one has to learn that if everything is in concert pitch. Having instruments read in different keys really limits the repertoire that they can play to music written for their own instrument or in the same key as their instrument. I think you should just switch chefs when necessary. I feel like transposing is just a tradition thing, and people don't like concert pitch because it's not what they're used to and they feel like the skills they took so long to learn won't be needed any more. But if we think of musicians in the future, having everything be standardized will make it much easier for people to just pick up a piece and play it, instead of re-arranging it or having to think really hard about it. It'd make harmonizing with other people a lot easier too. I think it's a learnable skill, but an unnecessary one if everything was just in concert pitch. I have yet to be convinced that there is a valid reason to transpose. Most arguments for transposing are basically wind players being a bit *ahem* whiny about having to adjust to something new. Or they mention how all the fingerings will be different if they have to pick up a different instrument. The notes on the staff will just be shifted a bit. That's all. If I go over to show the bassist how to play their part, I have to adjust to "oh, crap this is tuned in fourths". And I just do that. Transposing is an obstacle that gets in the way of learning multiple instruments. And I don't mean switching from alto to tenor sax, I mean, if everyone just learned to play in concert pitch from the start, it would be a lot easier for that alto saxophonist to pick up a French horn or tuba. The way I see transposing is that it puts each instrument in its own little box and they can't leave that box without having to put a lot of thought into it, which means no sight reading pieces for instruments in a different key.
You want to take the burden off transposition from the reader and put the difficulty of fingering and reading onto the player. But professional orchestrators have to respect the perspectives of their musicians - otherwise recording, rehearsing, and performing becomes very expensive indeed, and no fun for anyone. And how is it a cop-out to ask that score-readers (composers and conductors) do something far more difficult than just reading everything in C? If anything, that takes training, but it's enormously worth it. To me, a cop-out would be writing everything in C and letting the musicians work it out. A "cop-out" is when you take the easy way out. Transposing at sight isn't easy, at least at first.
OrchestrationOnline Wow! Didn't think you'd actually reply! Personally, I meant a cop out for the musicians themselves, not the score readers. And you are correct in that I think I do want to put the difficulty of fingering and reading on to the player. I'm coming from an instrumentalist point of view, and the way I see it, having transposing instruments limits the amount of overlap between the players' repertoires. Especially for young musicians. And improvisers as well; people who want to just sit down and read off of a piece of music with some strangers and make it all come together. I think my main idea was that transposing makes it much much harder (for an instrumentalist) to sight-read music not written for their instrument, which I think is a bad thing.
@@stelladavis1798 As a woodwind and brass doubler, I can argue that without the transposition of the instruments I play (flute, alto/tenor sax, clarinet, euphonium and trombone), I would not even have attempted to pick up any of them, apart from the flute, which I started on. All woodwind instruments (apart from the bassoon) share the same basic idea for the fingerings. So having known the flute, I could pick up the saxophone and instantly know almost all the fingerings, just changing a couple of notes to fit the key-work of that specific instrument.
The clarinet posed a more challenging switch as this over-blows at the twelfth rather than the octave like the other woodwinds, so the fingering for a C in the low register is the same as the fingering of the G in the high register. The fingerings of the high register of the clarinet are almost identical to those of the saxophone.
All of this would have been immensely more challenging if all the instruments were written at concert pitch. The fingering for a G on the flute would produce an F on the tenor saxophone and the high register of the clarinet, a Bb on the alto saxophone and the low register of the clarinet and a C on the English horn. The same fingering would be mapped to different notes on each instrument, whereas using transpositions, these would all be written as a G (except the clarinet in the lower register). So if all instruments were to be written in C, then the woodwind doubler would be restricted to learning only instruments of the same key as the instrument they first learned, unless they intend to learn 4 different ways of labeling the same fingerings.
I can assure you that it is much more difficult to overwrite the meaning of a fingering than it is to learn a new fingering. The most trouble I had with learning the clarinet were the notes from the middle C to the F on the first space, since these pitches are overlapping with the flute and saxophone but have fingerings that correspond to different notes on these instruments. Fingerings that were specific to the instrument in question, like the high notes (sax has palm keys, clarinet uses altissimo and the flute has its own fingerings) did not pose as much trouble. The notes lower than the middle C also did not pose as much trouble since these notes are not encountered very often on flute and saxophone.
Another problem would arise from doubling within the same family of woodwind instruments. So if I started on alto sax and wanted to learn tenor sax, if the instruments were written in concert pitch, I would have to learn separate fingerings for alto and tenor rather than keeping the same ones. Essentially, this forces the player to always sight transpose when using their auxiliary! The result is that the musician can play the instrument well very quickly but cannot read the music. Using transpositions facilitates switching between auxiliaries as the musician only has to learn to adjust the embouchure and tone, rather than renaming all the fingerings.
As for moving from woodwinds to brass, since all the fingerings are entirely new, the key of the first instrument learned does not matter. I play the flute in C, alto sax in Eb, tenor sax and clarinet in Bb, all in treble clef. I play the euphonium and trombone as concert pitch instruments in bass clef. These brass instruments are actually pitched in Bb but are written in C as you suggested should be done. The problem with brass instruments is that all the bass clef instruments are written in concert pitch but the treble clef instruments are transposing. If I were to play the lowest note in open position on the euphonium this would be written as a Bb, but on the Bb trumpet, this would be written as a C, sounding as a Bb.
In the case of brass instruments, transpositions work between treble clef instruments, so the Bb, C and Eb trumpets all share the same fingerings. However, while the Bb trumpet and the euphonium share the same concert pitches produced with a fingering, the learned fingerings are ultimately different since the trumpet is taught as a transposing instrument while the euphonium is taught as a concert pitch instrument. In British Brass band notation, this discrepancy is rectified as all instruments (except the bass trombone) are written in treble clef such that all instruments use the Bb cornet fingerings. Using concert pitch notation, the burden is put on the musician to learn the new fingerings for every instrument they learn that is pitched in a different key. This makes it more difficult for someone like me who has learned the Bb Euphonium's fingernings to learn the Eb, C or F tuba.
TL;DR
Woodwind transpositions are important for doubling due to the considerable overlap in fingerings, since having multiple names for the same fingering is confusing to the player. Transposition makes it so that a fingering only has one name that works for most instruments.
Brass transpositions are not fully standardized outside of the British Brass Band, since the treble clef instruments transpose, while the bass clef instruments do not. In this case, the transpositions deter doubling between treble and bass clef instruments.
@@user-zc9si7ls9i For the brass part I agree mostly with you, although in my experience eufoniums are written in Bb. And you also have the french horns who read for some strange way in F although they are actually built in Bb (you could play the pieces you play on an eufonium on them without having to change your fingering and they sound the same)
why transpose?
Literally, watch the video, and read my comment below your other question.
"no one would want to play an auxiliary".
I'm sorry, but it's like saying "someone who plays guitar will never want to play another instrument, e.g. a piano, because you have to learn how to play it, and that's hard." The existence of people who play multiple instruments disproves your hyperbolic statement that no one would want to play an auxiliary.
Isn't the Oboe D'Amore transposing, making it a complete different instrument from the regular non transposing Oboe? Not many pieces call for it. And it would probably be more convenient for a clarinet player to learn it instead, since it's in A, a key clarinets use.
The whole argument is a bit weak when you consider that piano is not a transposing instrument and a pianist has to learn different fingerings for each key he/she had to play, and no transposing pianos exist.
Yes, the oboe d'amore pitched in the key of A. It is NOT a completely different instrument than the oboe by any means. It has the same fingering and overblowing, except that when the player plays a written C, it sounds A. No, it would NOT be more convenient for a clarinetist to learn to play it instead, because the fingering, overblowing, embouchure, and entire outlook of clarinet is quite different from oboe.
"The whole argument is a bit weak..." With respect, I think you may have missed the point of the argument entirely. Staves represent fingering systems that correspond to written pitches for winds and brass FAR MORE than they represent concert pitches. A staff is a landscape for the fingers and the embouchure more than the ear. With that understood, then any instrument of any family may be played by an experienced player of the standard model.
no, it is still easier because the basic fingerings are the same between the instruments and it just takes adjusting the ears to hear a different tone. Plus most clarinetists barely want to learn to play the other instruments in their own family much less pick up a more difficult and rarely used instrument.
can't liaten to music AND a lecturer at the same time.....it is ANNOYING....fire the sound man
Wait...but that's ME! 😄 This may be the wrong channel for you then.
Oh no, a player has to re-learn fingerings in order to be able to play an auxiliary (i.e. a different musical instrument)? That sounds awful. We must force everyone else to re-learn how to read music, so that an oboe player doesn't have to practice. 😂
Sure. And while we're at it, let's make all beginning piano students play all their first pieces in D-flat major and F-sharp minor. And all guitarists have to mostly play in E-flat and A-flat for the first couple years.
@@OrchestrationOnline I didn't say we should always try to make life difficult for musicians. But I wonder how many people simply quit studying orchestral music because of this transposition dogma.
@@garrysmodsketches Well, you're acting openly mocking and contemptuous of experience that's being shared by pro musicians at the highest level - like top concert and film orchestras - so that's not a great way to start regardless. As to people quitting because of transposition - I've trained thousands of developing orchestrators, and transposition is a minor thing. It would be like people quitting bike riding because they can't figure out some of the rules of the road. But honestly, my friend - film scores are almost always set up in concert pitch (as well as some modern concert scores), so anyone can read those. And someone so obviously intelligent and capable of yourself finds reading in F and Bb so challenging that you have to come after me? Don't bother. But I'd love for us to start over and be collegial and courteous from this point.