[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Yes, this I know. But my question concerns the accidentals: brass wind
> instruments don't put any accidentals on the beginning of a line, they
> are written in each bar directly before the notes. This is what I meant
> when I sloppily said "C major".
>
> It's different with clarinets, which are notated after the "fingering
> mapping", too. But here, there are accidentals on the beginning of a line.
> For a peace in d minor, clarinets in B flat are notated in e minor,
> with a sharp sign on the beginning of each line. But for the brass,
> it always looks like a minor/C major. Why is this?
It is a relic from ancient times. Horns didn't have got valves
approximately 150 years ago. Before that time, parts were always
written with in key C-major, with a marking that indicated which key
should sound. The horn-player put in the right crook in the horn, and
played the tones from the appropriate harmonic sequence. This
notation practice has become a tradition: composers never wrote a
keysignature for horn parts, they just wrote on the part in whatever
key they wanted it to sound, and let the player figure out the rest.
When valved instruments became the norm, this practice persisted.
Even Richard Strauss wrote parts both in "Es" and "tief B" (E-flat and
B-flat respectively), notated in C-major for his Op. 13
serenade. Nowadays, I only get parts written in F, often with
key-signature. (Of course in modern music, key-signatures themselves
aren't allways that useful anymore, but that's another story).
A practical advantage of this is that you learn to transpose very
quickly as horn-player. And in case you wondered: I play the French
Horn.
--
Han-Wen Nienhuys, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** GNU LilyPond - The Music Typesetter
http://www.cs.uu.nl/people/hanwen/lilypond/index.html
