Key signatures work best for traditional major and minor tonalities. They also work fairly well for pan-diatonic music lacking a strong tonic. For church/jazz modes I would recommend using the parallel major or minor key signature and inflecting the mode with accidentals.
For anything else, don't use a key signature.
These recommendations are valid for all instruments, not just horns. They are based on bitter experiences as a composer in younger days, I might add.
Keef wrote:
I have two requests with respect to parts with key signatures, and I think they fairly apply to *any* instrumental part--not just horn parts. The first is, if a key signature is specified, the piece should be in that key. Prokofiev was an example of a composer who often used key signatures but wrote only marginally in the key. As a player it makes me crazy, even if the composer in me understands his motivation. Where the part deviates from the key signature, make liberal use of cautionaries. For example, if the key signature is G major but the part is momentarily in c minor, provide cautionaries on the b-naturals and a-naturals, and on f-sharps if the tune has a raised fifth, etc.
What would you suggest I do if:
a) the piece is tonal in the Hindemith sense (interval hierarchy over key, but it is still in a traditional key, and movement on the circle of fifths is still the base)?
or if you like, traditional macrostructure, not so traditional microstructure?
b) polytonality is used regularly within the piece as a method of creating and releasing tension between and among parts?
(i.e. five parts gradually shift into five simultaneous keys only to start fresh after a break -- a favorite device of mine)
c) the piece changes keys so frequently that I feel the need to dispense with a signature?
d) the part is highly chromatic and the spellings are chosen to visually show the melodic curve?
e) the piece is modally based, or (horrors!) I invented my own scale for it?
In my music, I strive to keep triads visible, and to shy away from double accidentals and mixed sharps and flats if I can (sometimes it's not possible). I think of "levels of keys", basically .. macro and microstructure. There are other bugaboos in my music that cause all sorts of confusion mostly due to how well the player deals with the tyranny of the metronome, so I'm interested in keeping this aspect as clean as possible so that it doesn't eat up precious rehearsal time. I simply try to write the parts, transposed, but without a key signature (clearly marked that it is transposed), but with enharmonics if I think it's going to be more immediate in the player's translation (a passage in concert E -- we're talking just the part, mind you, not necessarily the whole simultaneous passage -- might be notated in Gb, just for Bb instruments, so that I can avoid a D# major triad if I use that 6th, e.g., as a very simple example -- I have one that does this and I found it much easier to communicate an Eb-G-Bb-Cb sequence than a D#-Fx-A#-B sequence). You can say that while I'm not trying to make it "easy" per se, I *am* trying to find the most direct route from my head to the player's -- complex music is easier to get across if it *looks* somewhat traditional on the page. I'm more likely to have success if I give the player something that he knows rather than has to stop a second and figure out. Generally it's when I start crossing the enharmonic lines in the circle of fifths quickly that this comes up.
Keef.
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