
Transposing Instruments - camtarn
https://opencurriculum.org/5567/transposing-instruments/
======
klez
> 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.

~~~
tabtab
Re: _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. _

The dirty secret of brass instruments. I wonder if they could make a direct
air-powered vibrator so that one doesn't have to torture their lips. It may
also make life easier for amateurs. I imagine it may result in loss of control
for subtle effects, but some amateurs will accept that.

~~~
kop316
Assuming you play a brass instrument, I suggest to try this experiment: Blow
air through your lips and purse then together, but do NOT buzz. Basically the
"buzzing" without the buzz. When you do that, continue to and press your lips
against the mouthpiece. You will make a note!

This was something my instructor showed me because use way too much of my lips
when I play (a very common mistake with amateurs), and a lot of the power you
use should be through your diaphragm (large versus small muscles).

------
toolslive
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)

~~~
tomcam
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
> 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
Thanks for the correction. I play sax. You are right of course. WTF is wrong
with me?

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memset
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
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

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sizzzzlerz
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.

------
adrianh
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. :-)

~~~
burfog
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.

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

~~~
rewgs
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.

~~~
burfog
It's a mess. The relevant badness is that the interval from one line to the
next is not constant. This makes transposition far more difficult than it
needs to be.

If the 12 notes of the octave were on 6 lines and 6 spaces, perhaps with a
distinct (dotted, wavey, thick, missing, etc.) line to aid in not getting
lost, the situation would be far better. There wouldn't need to be a key
signature at all, or any accidentals. Stack as many octaves as needed for the
part.

Probably we'll never transition to something sane. We can't even manage to get
grand staves with middle C in a unique (shared, central) position, which is
what you want when hand distinction isn't required.

~~~
rewgs
Question, so I better understand where you're coming from: are you a musician,
and if so, at what level would you consider yourself?

~~~
burfog
I suppose I understand this stuff far better than most people who have
bothered to learn an instrument. I frequently arrange music for flute, trumpet
(my primary instrument), and garklein recorder.

I'm at the level where usability matters. Top experts, not that there are
enough of them to care about, can handle anything. Beginners will be lost in
any case.

I would greatly prefer a chromatic notation. Accidentals ought to be reserved
for quarter-tone needs. Chromatic notation gives music the same shape on the
page no matter what pitch it is transposed to; this is an extremely valuable
property. Sight-transposition would be trivial. Imagine a world in which an
ordinary clarinet player could play music for the flute, horn, or bassoon.
Sight-transposing, even by other than an octave, would be easy for most
players.

~~~
rewgs
Gotcha, thanks for that. I wasn't sure if you were coming from the place of a
musician who's super deep into it, or a novice or non-musician who just can't
really grok notation because that just isn't their world. Obviously it's the
former.

I think your ideas here are so interesting! I totally see what you're saying
with accidentals being reserved for quarter tones. I studied microtonal music
in college and _hated_ the notation systems. They truly feel "bolted on" to
standard notation.

Have you developed any sort of concrete "replacement" system? If so, I'd love
to see it. This is super cool stuff.

------
gyuserbti
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
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.

------
nightcracker
I can understand transposing whole octaves to limit the use of extra bars.

Transposing anything other than that seems silly to me.

~~~
klez
> 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
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.

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mrleiter
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
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
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...](https://www.rockfordsymphony.com/faqs/why-does-the-orchestra-
always-tune-to-the-oboe/)

