First of all, you should be able to avoid most of that my simply choosing the right transposition interval. For example, if a piece is in Ab and the singer says she wants it taken down a major 3rd, you really want to make that a diminished 4th. If the piece has a modulated section, you may need to transpose that section differently from the main piece. <<
The piece I'm talking about specifically today is "More" from Dick Tracy. This is a piece with no guitar chords. It started out in Eb, and taking it down a minor third (which is what women usually want) by putting it in C# left only one double sharp, so that was really good.
Beyond that, I myself would not hesitate to simplify the accidentals. The way I figure it, if you're transposing a song, part of your job is to make whatever adjustments are necessary to make it work well in the new key. When I do transpositions, I'll often make adjustments to clefs or cross-staffing as well, and occasionally fingering-related adjustments. <<
I think you are right when there are no guitar chords. However, these people usually want some sort of significant bargain because they are starving artistes, and I need some way to bridge the gap between charging them the going rate and selling my services short. When transposing a piece downward makes the accompaniment go down too low, I transpose sections up an octave. I also do not charge for corrections, and do not complain when these "corrections" contain edits which were not part of the original arrangement. I want them to have something that works well, but when they want a price break, I think a good compromise is to for them to check it over for ease of reading instead of picking it up from my doorman and taking it directly to an audition. Perhaps others will think this is too harsh.
Crystal Premo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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