Transposing

[Dave2002]

Players of some instruments will probably be familiar with transposing, though the effects may depend on how they play.

Will they play at the correct pitch with revised fingering, or will they play at the pitch for their instrument? Is it easier or harder for those who have good absolute pitch?

My attempts to relearn/improve my recorder playing have now brought me on to this. Changing from C to F or F to C is easy - just swap soprano for treble or vice versa and use the same fingering. However, that's not so easy in reality, as personally I now treat each instrument as different, and somehow I know which one I'm playing and more than 95% of the time I get the correct pitch, but occasionally I go wrong and it takes me a couple of notes to correct this

Some pieces are fairly easy to transpose at sight - say from C to B flat, while others may be more difficult. I suppose there are some musicians who can transpose just about anything to any other key on sight, while others might have to practice, or may find it very difficult.

I don't really know what it's like for pianists - I suspect hard for all but the very best. It was never anything I really felt I had to do or practice before.

With some modern technology it is, of course easy. Some keyboards - play pieces in C, then just dial in the key you want the piece to sound at, though that might again be confusing for some musicians.

[Pulcinella]

I am a bit cursed by having, if not exactly so-called perfect pitch (though I can usually hum an A=440 and get it right), a sort of variable absolute pitch.
If given a starting note, I'm usually happy to use it and sing along, provided that the pitch is not too remote from what I imagine/hear in my head from looking at the score.
But if I'm TOLD that, for example, here's a G when the piece is written in A and we're singing in G, I find it much harder. I then have to actively think each note a tone down!
And, not being a player of a transposing instrument, I find it very hard to 'read' an orchestral score (and, as mentioned on another thread, some choral scores/parts when odd clefs are used).
So I like some of Stravinsky's scores that have 'instrument at pitch' in them. Whether the player then has to do the transposition or the part itself is rewritten I have no idea!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I’m so bad at transposing at sight, that I input the score into my computer in order to transpose and reprint it. It takes time, but is well worth the effort.

Otherwise, up or down a tone is my limit.

[Pabmusic]

The best transposers, as a class, are probably horn players. You simply don't see them going round with a set of crooks, do you? (Well at least not with 'modern' horns.) They constantly transpose - sometimes several different transpositions in a piece - in music where the composer wrote for crooked horns. The Siegfried-Idyll is one instance where Wagner changes the crooks partway through the work. I hope one of the horn-players here will back me up in this.

The Stravinsky/Prokofiev habit of writing scores with untransposed instruments does not extend to the parts, which are usually transposed. (Though I suppose there may be exceptions.)

[cloughie]

I’m so bad at transposing at sight, that I input the score into my computer in order to transpose and reprint it. It takes time, but is well worth the effort.

Otherwise, up or down a tone is my limit.

I agree with that approach, as a great help to my accompanist, when I need to adjust the key to suit my voice and as my amateur music writing skills are limited it is time consuming but worthwhile and my accompanist can correct me if I’ve not quite got it right. I am also trying to arrange pieces for 4 parts both TTBB and SATB and need to be mindful of the ranges of the singers who will be using them.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Re Pabs’ post, I’m full of admiration for horn players’ skill in transposing.

[Keraulophone]

I’m so bad at transposing at sight, that I...

...failed my ARCO due to that one test.* So frustrating, but forty years later I’ve hardly improved at all.

(* hymn-style 4-part harmony sight-read at the prescribed metronome mark)

[Ein Heldenleben]

I would have thought transposing on keyboards must be the hardest because of the multiple lines . I guess accompanists have to do it all the time. Even with the correct score in front of you its a very weird feeling playing a Schubert or Brahms song in the key that you are not used to. Having to take one song down a tone and the next a couple of tones doesn’t bear thinking about with the wrong score in front of you . I wonder if any one has ever turned up with the wrong score and had to do it.
There is a sequence in the fly on the wall doc on the recording of the cast album for company where Elaine Stritch can’t hit a high note and the MD asks the band to take it down a semitone and they don’t even bat an eyelid.I think I once heard that because of a tuning error Beethoven had to play the premier of his first piano concerto in C Sharp rather than C major . I would imagine he , Bach , and Mozart could play any of their compositions in any key without a single slip. Back on earth
I am always amazed at the ability of jazz pianists and bass players ( who drive the harmonic changes ) to play any standard in just about any key (though usually one with a few flats in it )

[cloughie]

I would have thought transposing on keyboards must be the hardest because of the multiple lines . I guess accompanists have to do it all the time. Even with the correct score in front of you its a very weird feeling playing a Schubert or Brahms song in the key that you are not used to. Having to take one song down a tone and the next a couple of tones doesn’t bear thinking about with the wrong score in front of you . I wonder if any one has ever turned up with the wrong score and had to do it.
There is a sequence in the fly on the wall doc on the recording of the cast album for company where Elaine Stritch can’t hit a high note and the MD asks the band to take it down a semitone and they don’t even bat an eyelid.I think I once heard that because of a tuning error Beethoven had to play the premier of his first piano concerto in C Sharp rather than C major . I would imagine he , Bach , and Mozart could play any of their compositions in any key without a single slip. Back on earth
I am always amazed at the ability of jazz pianists and bass players ( who drive the harmonic changes ) to play any standard in just about any key (though usually one with a few flats in it )

Jazz musicians probably play by ear once they have cracked the tune and decided how they are going to play but not easy - something I would love to be able to do!

[MrGongGong]

Surely learning the horn is an essential skill for all musicians ?
Once you get into the zone it's not that difficult at all (though i'm a more than a little rusty !)

[Dave2002]

I would have thought transposing on keyboards must be the hardest because of the multiple lines.

Very possibly if keyboard = piano, harpsichord, clavichord, organ etc. OTOH if it's one of those electronic thingies, the key can just be put in - I think, or alternatively the tuning raised or lowered to suit.

[pastoralguy]

Isn't there a story about Brahms being on tour with a singer who, whilst rehearsing, said to the young pianist 'If I don't feel up to the pitch on any given night then, after the first song, I'll tap twice on the piano and that'll be your cue to transpose the rest of the programme down a tone. Obviously, I'll pay you extra for your troubles '.

So, as the tour progressed, the singer would sing his first song and, inevitably, the two taps on the piano would come. What the singer didn't realise was that Brahms would transpose the first song up a tone then wait for the taps, (and the extra cash!), before playing the rest of the programme at pitch.

[rauschwerk]

I have had two memorable experiences of piano accompaniment transposition.

I have absolute pitch, though it's a lot less precise than it was in my youth (something of the sort also happened to Britten). I was once the pianist for an old-time music hall troupe and had got quite used to transposing from the score by one or two semitones. However, we once turned up to do a local village hall gig and the piano was a minor third flat! I had to transpose everything, and for the numbers I was already transposing I found myself reading one key, playing another and hearing a third. By the end of the show my brain had reached meltdown and I was scarcely able to play Scotland the Brave in E from a copy in C whilst hearing D flat. Never again!

On another occasion I was accompanying a singer for a recital which included It Was a Lover and his Lass by Geoffrey Bush, which is published in only one key (D major). No hope of transposing at sight, but with the aid of my digital piano we discovered that the best key was E major. I agreed to work on transposing the accompaniment. I began to make a new score but then decided that sheer hard graft was the better solution. Everything went just fine. We were rehearsing in the venue just before the concert when the concert organiser - a good singer himself - turned up and asked if he might try over this Bush song, which was new to him, in the printed key. I started off in D, but after a few bars my ears and fingers insisted on moving to E! After a few tries we had to give up. Anyway, my hard work paid off - this song turned out to be the hit number of the concert.

[BBMmk2]

When I was playing tuba, in the orchestra, I transposed down a minor third, then changed it to treble clef, from having played in brass bands for years, the Tubas would play in treble clef, as they are a transposing instrument. However, there was an easier way, plus three sharps and minus three flats.

[cloughie]

Isn't there a story about Brahms being on tour with a singer who, whilst rehearsing, said to the young pianist 'If I don't feel up to the pitch on any given night then, after the first song, I'll tap twice on the piano and that'll be your cue to transpose the rest of the programme down a tone. Obviously, I'll pay you extra for your troubles '.

So, as the tour progressed, the singer would sing his first song and, inevitably, the two taps on the piano would come. What the singer didn't realise was that Brahms would transpose the first song up a tone then wait for the taps, (and the extra cash!), before playing the rest of the programme at pitch.

Was Brahms hard up or just greedy?