On 11/21/2010 1:43 PM, John Howell wrote:
At 7:24 AM -0500 11/21/10, David H. Bailey wrote:
I understand the use of clefs to transpose from concert pitch music to
the differently keyed transposing instruments, but is there a chart
somewhere which does things in reverse?
So that looking at a part for F horn, for example, which is printed in
the treble clef, what clef would one use to show what the concert
pitch note is?
Not sure what you mean by "in reverse," David, but for the example you
give both F horn and English horn--any F instrument, actually--you
imagine its being in mezzo-soprano clef: middle C on the 2nd line. And
in fact I DO think that way when I enter horn notes directly into a
transposed score. For Eb alto sax I think bass clef, but have to
remember the octave transposition.
What I meant by "in reverse" is that if I'm looking at a written F in an
F horn part, I can use the mezzo-soprano clef to get the concert pitch
note (Bb). But what if I'm looking at a concert pitch score, how do I
figure out what note the F horn should play, using clefs? So I'm
looking at a printed Bb but need to find a clef that will show me that
as an F. I guess the baritone clef would do the trick. But along with
all this clef stuff, one needs to also remember the "add 1 flat when
going from F-horn to concert pitch" and "remove 1 flat when going from
concert pitch to F horn." That makes all the various rules regarding
the use of clefs pretty daunting to learn and remember.
I find it much easier to think of transposition in a more fixed manner:
F on an F horn equals Bb in concert pitch. Doesn't matter which end
of that statement I'm coming from, since the equality works both ways.
And it doesn't matter whether the Bb is because of the key signature or
because of an accidental, the equality still applies.
Given the limited number of common transpositions (instrument in Eb,
instrument in F, instrument in A, instrument in G) it's not that hard to
remember them. For instruments a whole step away from concert pitch
(Bb, D) it's either up a whole step or down a whole step, which has
always been easy for me to work with.
And when I draw a blank I go back to "instrument in G means that when it
plays what it thinks is a C, it's actually a G" and get my bearings that
way.
--
David H. Bailey
dhbai...@davidbaileymusicstudio.com
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