Re: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
Hi Alan and Everyone, Alan's story goes right along with what I had to do for Christmas eve this year. I was hired to do a kind of a Transiberian Orchestra kind of church service. A rock band, string quartet and me playing on one side of a gymnasium (the church is new and does not have a building as of this time) and on the other side a Jamaican Steel Band. The person who booked the string quartet is a music teacher and when the music coordinator told her he wanted a hornist, she told him, you know that the horn is a transposing instrument? He said, yes! and proceeded to totally mess up everything I was to play. I went nuts trying to first figure out what he'd written, he had parts that were written below the cello, so I asked him if that is what he really wanted...He replied, no, but here's a rhythm score for the rhythm guitar, fake some parts from that... I had one piece, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Changes Everything that I had a 4 bar melody intro. The rock band was so loud and for lack of a better term Twangy...that I had a hard time hearing. It was the first piece we played before I knew the transpositions were messed up and played what was written. The singer started and quickly stopped saying I can't find my pitch...I quickly figured out the guy wrote the transposition wrong, and quickly upped everything a fifth...Then everything was ok...Just another story from the battle front. At least it paid well and made my Christmas very merry... Have a great day, Walt Lewis At 06:22 PM 1/13/2005 -0500, you wrote: A couple of years ago I signed up to play a brass ensemble Easter church gig. Most of the parts in my book were for Horn In F. But for the Hallelujah Chorus, I got the part for 2nd Trumpet In D (or some such key). No way around it -- I had to write out a Horn In F transposition, painstakingly, note for note. Except for a couple of phrases that I had to re-transpose down an octave, it worked OK to play the part on horn in place of trumpet. Even those down-octave phrases sounded all right in performance. Octave transpositions are so easy that I don't even think of'm as transpositions. -- Alan Cole, rank amateur McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.11 - Release Date: 1/12/2005 ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/wlewis9637%40wowway.com -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.11 - Release Date: 1/12/2005 No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.11 - Release Date: 1/12/2005 ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
Re: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
Oops! I meant transposition. Ellen The first transportation I learned was Eb because back in those dark ages much band music was for Eb horn. I had played the horn less than 6 weeks when I was first required to learn to transpose. Normally now I teach C transposition first because so many kids have keyboards and/or pianos and want to check out pitches for correctness. If you don't say it is hard or really easy but necessary, most kids will embrace learning to transpose with enthusiasm. Walt and I are of the same ancient generation and share most of the same ideas about what to teach and how to get it done. Since we teach private lessons, we approach the topic of transposition according to the needs abd abilities of each student. I believe in the old saying: Necessity is the mother of invention and learning. Ellen Manthe NO Writing out the part defeats the purpose of what I was attempting to teach to you and to your son. Please don't do that, give him the challenge of learning how to work out a transposition! Try just a little bit at a time. To answer your inquiry about Eb, that is a good transposition to start with because he very well could see some in his band class with some older marches.I suggested #25, it's fairly easy and is not extreme in range, as I don't think the Pottag book has another one that is fairly easy in Eb. I know of one other one in Eb, but I am not a real fan of that particular duet. If he is aware of how to transpose now, it won't be such a shock to him later when he sees it later on in Kopprasch or some other good method. Let me relate a story about one of my kids last year. His Middle school band director and I were colleagues in a Brass Quintet, and she had him start studying with me from practically day one...At the close of the school year, she gave him a mallet percussion part in C for Old MacDonald and told him to have me show him how to transpose it at his lesson. In the meantime she called and gave me a heads up. When lesson time arrived, he was excited about the part, as she had prepared him with the knowledge that horn players had to able to transpose. He ate it up and really got into it. It took only a few minutes to teach him the concept and he really reacted well to the challenge. It's all in how you approach the idea of introducing transposing to him. The earlier, the better in my opinion...Any thoughts by anyone else who teaches lessons out there? Walt Lewis ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/ellenmanthe%40earthlink.net ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
Re: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
On Thursday, January 13, 2005, at 03:33 PM, Ellen Manthe wrote: Oops! I meant transposition. Ellen The first transportation I learned was Eb because back in those dark ages much band music was for Eb horn. Ellen Manthe It is OK! Ellen. You did transport the music from one key to the next. Speaking of which, I encountered something I have never seen before. We apparently had a new score and parts for the Haendel Royal Fireworks music. I suspect this is a new score from Luck's Music Library. The parts in the score are all in concert pitch, which is the key of D. The printed parts are exactly as they appear in the score. Thus, the horn parts are printed in the key of D and marked for Horn in C. The original was printed in C and we play that one in D horn. This one threw me seven ways from Sunday and could not play in D horn properly. Drove me NUTS!I'd dearly like to have the old original part written in C so I could play in D horn. I strongly suspect someone decided on parts without consulting original orchestration; maybe a computer nut with Finale or Sibelius but no musical background. I could have gone another 50 years without seeing this one! Frustrated: Paul Mansur ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
RE: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
Ellen Manthe wrote The first transportation I learned was Oops! I meant transposition. Paul Mansur wrote: It is OK! Ellen. You did transport the music from one key to the next. ...and in fact in other languages, transport is indeed the Latin root used for this concept. In Spanish the normal way of expressing transposition is transporte. But a rose by another name still causes students fits in Brahms 2... David B. Thompson Solo Horn, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
Re: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
I have only ever seen horn parts (also very old ones) for the Royal Fireworks Music which are written as sounding (or an octave higher to be exact) with 2 sharps in the key signature and marked horn in C (But always played on D Horns). If I understand you properly you are seeing this for the first time which means you are jolly lucky considering the length and breadth of your horn playing career. But anything is possible in the land of unlimited opportunities in which you live. Or are you saying you have been given proper D-horn parts for the first time? I know transposed parts are more common in the US, but usually into F. Didn't Lawrence Yates mention this strange aberration recently on one of the lists? best Wishes, Benno Heinemann Paul Mansur wrote: We apparently had a new score and parts for the Haendel Royal Fireworks music. I suspect this is a new score from Luck's Music Library. The parts in the score are all in concert pitch, which is the key of D. The printed parts are exactly as they appear in the score. Thus, the horn parts are printed in the key of D and marked for Horn in C. The original was printed in C and we play that one in D horn. This one threw me seven ways from Sunday and could not play in D horn properly. Drove me NUTS!I'd dearly like to have the old original part written in C so I could play in D horn. I strongly suspect someone decided on parts without consulting original orchestration; maybe a computer nut with Finale or Sibelius but no musical background. I could have gone another 50 years without seeing this one! Frustrated: Paul Mansur ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/wunderhorn%40freenet.de ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
Re: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
A couple of years ago I signed up to play a brass ensemble Easter church gig. Most of the parts in my book were for Horn In F. But for the Hallelujah Chorus, I got the part for 2nd Trumpet In D (or some such key). No way around it -- I had to write out a Horn In F transposition, painstakingly, note for note. Except for a couple of phrases that I had to re-transpose down an octave, it worked OK to play the part on horn in place of trumpet. Even those down-octave phrases sounded all right in performance. Octave transpositions are so easy that I don't even think of'm as transpositions. -- Alan Cole, rank amateur McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.11 - Release Date: 1/12/2005 ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
Re: [Hornlist] Re: transposition
On Thursday, January 13, 2005, at 06:04 PM, Benno Heinemann wrote: I have only ever seen horn parts (also very old ones) for the Royal Fireworks Music which are written as sounding (or an octave higher to be exact) with 2 sharps in the key signature and marked horn in C (But always played on D Horns). This I HAVE seen. I am ready and willing to play regular horn in D parts If I understand you properly you are seeing this for the first time which means you are jolly lucky considering the length and breadth of your horn playing career. But anything is possible in the land of unlimited opportunities in which you live. Or are you saying you have been given proper D-horn parts for the first time? I know transposed parts are more common in the US, but usually into F. No, We were given horn parts written in concert pitch (8va) in the key of D. This required us to use C transposition so we had to play in written key of A major for horn. I had a mental block as I am used to playing a G when I see a C on the staff in horn notation. We were to use regular C transposition but had to wind up in concert D. In a sense, I transposed as for Eb horn to written scale of C and played it in D horn. One step too many for speed. I shall have to practice hard or rewrite the part properly. Didn't Lawrence Yates mention this strange aberration recently on one of the lists? I think he mentioned it as conventional notation for Horn in D. THAT is what I wish we had. Paul Mansur ___ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
