Transposing
(entry for 8/30/2024)
The next concept we’re going to cover in these blog posts is the idea of ‘Transposing.’
The definition of ‘transpose’ in music is the changing of pitch, either higher or lower. For example, a church pianist or organist performing a hymn that is written in the key of A major (three sharps) might decide to play it in A-flat major (four flats) instead. Perhaps the singers are finding the higher notes slightly harder to hit, so the instrumentalist lowers the pitches a half-step to make them more comfortable. (The singers may not even notice the change, except that they suddenly find the pitches easier to hit!) Or perhaps, if she is playing a solo, the instrumentalist finds the fingering in the flat key easier that the fingering in the sharp key. (My maternal grandmother, who was a church organist, much preferred playing flat keys, and would almost always automatically transpose everything into a flat key for that reason, unless there were other musicians involved who objected. I'm the opposite; I like sharp keys better. However, I don't enjoy transposing, so I usually play a piece in the key it is written in, even if it's five flats!)
Another example of transposition is the use of ‘transposing instruments.’ For example, a ‘Clarinet in A’ when playing the note written and fingered as ‘C,’ will emit a note that is pitched as ‘A’ instead, which is a minor third lower than the written note. Any other pitch played on the instrument will be lowered by that same amount. Let’s say that a piece is written in the key of E major (four sharps). When played by a Clarinet in A, the part will be written in G, which is only one sharp. This makes the piece easier to read and also easier to play, as sharp and flat fingerings on the clarinet are more complicated than those for ‘natural’ notes. (There’s also a Clarinet in B-flat, which is actually better known than the one in A.)
A Clarinet in A part subtracts three sharps from the key signature the piece is written in.
When a Clarinet in A plays these notes:
These are the sounds that come out!
The top example is much easier to read than the bottom one.
(To clarify, if you want the sound from the second example, you write the Clarinet in A part as is shown in the first example.)
A Trumpet or Cornet in B-flat (or, for that matter, a Clarinet in B-flat) will lower its pitches by a major second, making it easier to read and play in flat keys. For example, if a band piece is written in A-flat major (four flats), the part for Trumpet in B-flat will have only two flats, and be written in B-flat instead of A-flat.
A Clarinet in B-flat part (or Trumpet or Cornet in B-flat) subtracts two flats from the piece's key signature.
If a Trumpet in B-flat plays this:
It sounds like this:
To put it the other way around, if you want the sounds in the second example, you write the part as shown in the first example.
The top example is a bit easier to read, especially because of the less complex key signature.
(If the names of intervals are unfamiliar to you, you might want to go back and re-read the post on intervals, which you can do by clicking HERE.)
Composers in the 18th and 19th centuries liked to specify Clarinet in A if the piece was in a sharp key, or Clarinet in B-flat if the piece was in a flat key. Sometimes they would switch instruments right in the middle of a piece! As a result, most professional clarinet players own one of each, so that they can easily play either type of part.
The picture at the top of this post is of ‘Adolphe’ Sax., who was born in Belgium in 1814. His real given name was Antoine-Josef, but everyone, including his parents, called him Adolphe. (No-one seems to know why!) I used his picture for this post, because he invented more transposing instruments, by far, than any other musician, ever. Probably more than all other musicians combined! His parents were manufacturers of various kinds of wind instruments, including flutes, clarinets, so-called French horns, trumpets, trombones, and tubas. One day at about age fifteen, Adolphe put a clarinet mouthpiece onto a trumpet, and blew, to see what would happen. What happened became, eventually, the saxophone, his most famous invention, which he patented in 1846, when he was thirty-two. (It combined a modified version of the reed mouthpiece and the fingering and key design of the cylindrical clarinet, but used a cone-shaped tube of brass, like the trumpet, cornet, trombone, and French horn, to create the pitches. He designed it in fourteen different pitch ranges, from a tiny Sopranino about a foot long to a huge Contra-Bass taller than a person! But only ten of these sizes were ever actually constructed, and only six sizes are still made nowadays, of which one is very rare and almost obsolete.)
Because of the metal material instead of wood, the saxophone has a much wider dynamic (volume) range than the clarinet it was based on, and because it is conical in shape rather than cylindrical like the clarinet, it has a wider pitch range as well. (The effects of tube shape and mouthpiece shape will be covered in a later post.)
A saxophone part for Alto Sax in E-flat (the most common size) will emit the lower pitch E-flat when the note written and fingered as ‘C’ is played. That is, it transposes downward by a major sixth.
If it plays this:
You hear this:
“What is the point?” I hear you ask. “Why not just write the part the way it is going to sound?”
There are two reasons for this. The first we have already covered: it reduces the number of flats in the key signature and makes it easier to read and play. The second reason is even more important. All saxophones are written and fingered exactly the same, no matter the size or pitch. That’s an incredible asset. A performer can learn on the alto, say, and immediately be able to play any other size! Without learning to read any new notes or adjust any of the fingering! (Also, all Sax parts are written in the Treble clef, no matter how low the emitted pitches that are being played. Again, ease of reading.)
Here are the six that are still made, and the transposition they impose on the music:
Soprano in B-flat – a major second below the written note.
Alto in E-flat – a major sixth below the written note.
Tenor in C (also known as C-Melody) – an octave below the written note – now very rare.
Tenor in B-flat – a major 9th (octave plus a major second) below the written note.
Baritone in E-flat – a major 13th (octave plus a major sixth) below the written note.
Bass in B-flat – a major 16th (two octaves plus a major second) below the written note.
(The previously mentioned Sopranino and Contra-Bass would both have been in E-flat, if they had ever been made. Mister Sax also announced in his patent application that all the E-flat instruments would also be available in F, and all the B-flat instruments would be available in C, bringing the total to 14.)
The story doesn’t end with the saxophones. That’s only the most important! First came the Bass version of the Clarinet.
While he didn’t actually invent the Bass Clarinet, his improvements on it were so great that he was granted a patent for that – at age 15!
Next came the Saxhorns. (Think of the modern Euphonium and/or the Baritone Horn in brass bands.) He invented these between ages 22 and 23, and got patents for all of them. They were available in seven different sizes and pitch ranges and became so popular that the great composers Berlioz and Wagner became their champions, causing sales to skyrocket.
Here's a picture of the first saxhorn, which still exists. (It was made out of various parts of several other instruments, and looks it!) It's in a museum in Brussels:
After that came the Saxtrombas, about the size of a trombone but with valves instead of slides, available in three different sizes. Then the Saxtuba, the ancestor of the modern Sousaphone. Then the six-valve Saxtrombone, which has three huge slides and looks too complicated to pick up, let alone play.
The list goes on and on. In total, Adolphe Sax invented and patented more than a hundred different instruments. He also taught music, especially flute, clarinet, and, of course, saxophone.
He died, broke, in 1894, at age 80, having lost control of all his patents to scheming crooks.
The good news is, however, that the saxhorns and (especially) the saxophones live on. The French composers Debussy and Ravel, as well as the American composer Gershwin, adopted the saxophones eagerly and insisted on including them in most of their major classical compositions. From there, they became staples in jazz, pop, and even rock. Today they are more popular than any other wind instrument and are the backbone, the ‘string’ instruments, if you will, of high school and college concert and marching bands. This is especially true of the Alto and Tenor sizes, while the Tenor in B-flat is often the lead instrument in any jazz ensemble. (Just a note in passing: the Soprano size is available in two different shapes: a straight tube, reminiscent of the clarinet it was spawned by, and a shorter one with a curved ‘bell’ at the lower end, like all the other sizes.)
Talking about transposing instruments, as we have just done, brings up a related subject: so-called transposing clefs.
The most important thing to know about transposing clefs is that there is no such thing!
As you are already aware now, there are transposing instruments, and there is even one transposing human voice! The tenor voice, when written in the Treble clef, transposes down an octave. It does not do so when written in the bass clef, however, so this creates some confusion for composers and arrangers. To help clear up the confusion, about a hundred years ago, some unknown copyist came up with the idea of writing a little numeral 8 below the Treble clef, as a reminder to composers and arrangers that when the Tenors sing in the Treble clef, they sing an octave lower than written. Here’s what that looks like:
Some musicians, not understanding that it was just a reminder, started thinking of it as a ‘transposing clef.’ In other words, they thought it was the clef itself that caused the transposition, rather than the Tenor voice convention. The fact is, whether there is a cute little 8 below the clef or not, the Tenors know that they are supposed to sing an octave lower than written. They always have and they always will. They don’t need the little 8. They don’t mind it but they don’t need it. But some non-singer musicians misunderstood. There is now a certain subset of the musical world that insists that the only correct way to write for Tenor voice in the treble clef is to add the little 8 under the clef sign. They say that omitting it is ‘wrong.’ Sometimes they get quite vehement about this. This is ridiculous. How do they explain the fact that tenor parts written by Haydn, say, or Mozart or Beethoven, or indeed anybody else up to and including Brahms, used ordinary Treble clef signs, with no cute little 8, and yet the Tenors still knew to sing an octave lower?!? They don’t. They can’t. They’re just ignoring the musical facts. And totally ignoring music history. Yet they call themselves musicians.
But yet, the problem not only persists— it gets worse! Some engravers have taken to putting the little 8 on top of the Treble clef when an instrument like a piccolo, for example, is playing. (The piccolo plays an octave higher than written, whether there is a cute little 8 on top of its clef sign or not.)
It gets even worse! Parts written for orchestral bells are two octaves below the actual sound. What do these misled engravers do? They put a little 15 on top of the clef sign. As though that were needed! The orchestral bells percussionists know what notes to play. They don’t need the little 15 up there. But there it is anyway!
The stupidest example I have been unfortunate enough to see so far is a small 13 below the Treble clef on a Baritone Sax part. Yeesh! (As though any sax player in the world is not going to know that that’s the transposition his or her instrument does!)
I can’t say it loud enough or often enough. It’s the instrument or the voice that transposes, NOT the clef!
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