Why are there transposing instruments

Thus, a clarinetist can associate a certain notated pitch with a certain fingering, no matter how large or small the instrument. The same is true for all major modern woodwind families.

There is a certain degree of fingering similarity across woodwind families. For flutes, oboes, clarinets in the upper register, and saxophones, this is a written C scale. For bassoons and clarinets in the low register, this is a written F scale. Down an octave. Up an octave. Down a m3. Up a m3. Up a M2. Down a M2. Up a P4. Down a P4.

Up a P5. Down a P5. The Guitar and Bass Guitar both of which sound an octave lower than written are 2 really common examples of this, as are the Glockenspiel and Recorder both sound 2 octaves higher than written. He is a music teacher, examiner, composer and pianist with over twenty years experience in music education. Read More. How to Read Sheet Music. Transposing Instruments. What is a transposing instrument?

Why do transposing instruments exist? Obviously, we've reached the point where we can construct instruments that are fully chromatic, so there is no need to change crooks and play only the overtone series.

The practical reasons are many, and mostly stem from the fact that if all instruments were pitched in C, any time you want to shift up or down to a higher or lower-sounding instrument, you would have to jump an entire octave. If you want some food for thought, ask yourself the question "Why do we write music in keys other than C?

The clef question is an easy one, so I'll tack on an answer here. The bass and treble clefs are symmetrical around middle C, which makes perfect sense for piano players reading a grand staff. For everyone else, the many different clefs exist so that instruments or voices that sing or play in a certain range don't have to spend too much time reading ledger lines. Also, a common shorthand to shift a clef by an octave is to notate a small 8 directly above or below it.

Tenor vocal parts are often written this way since their notes typically lie above the bass clef, but perfectly within an 8vb treble clef. Conversely, descant recorder parts are occasionally written in 8va treble clef. There is an overarching reason for transposition of wind instruments, which can be corroborated by anyone who has played woodwind doubles in a pit orchestra. Regardless of the reason transposing instruments came into practice in the first place, the practice is still standard in writing circles besides the valid observation that there alr4eady exists a huge body of already-transposed repertoire is quite simple:.

Instruments transpose so that players of a particular instrument, or type of instrument, can play any of an entire family of their weapon of choice using the same fingering scheme. Interestingly, ALL of these clarinets use virtually the exact same fingering scheme, which allows any clarinetist to switch easily among the various varieties -- for an entire work or performance, just one selection, or even in the middle of a single work and back again.

In addition, virtually all of the woodwinds are built on almost identical fingering methodologies -- with the exception of Bassoon although the bottom register of a clarinet highly resembles that instrument's fingering structure.

The Saxophone family is similarly varied, and the same fingering principles apply from one to the next. If you look at fingering charts for Flute, Oboe, English Horn, Clarinet and Saxophone, the note "D" is fingered in precisely the same way because the parts for these instruments is transposed to allow for this. If the instruments were NOT transposed for the players, the same condition would exist as that for the recorder family. Although recorders are constructed almost identically except for their physical size, the fingering schemes for each of these is different -- BECAUSE the practice of transposition has never been applied to them.

As such, in order for a Soprano recorded player to switch to Alto recorder, it is necessary for the player to learn and entirely different set of fingerings and, in many cases, to learn to read a new clef as well.

The brass instruments are similarly described. The fingering patterns for brass instruments are identical between transposing trumpets and horns -- and since there are 7 different possible fingerings for a trumpet or horn which correspond to the 7 different possible positions on a trombone, the resemblance throughout the family is complete. In modern practice, bass-clef instruments do not transpose So many trumpet players have switched to Euphonium over the years that a B-flat, treble-clef part is nearly always included in wind band literature to allow for this shift.

One final note pun intended : Many writers and conductors seem unaware of this circumstance, but if one plays the note "C" on any instrument, regardless of its transposition, the instrument will sound the note of the key in which it's built.

The only exception to this is low-brass instrumentation -- which, since they don't transpose see above have learned a set of fingerings peculiar to their instrument in terms of pitch-level. As such, a tuba play can't play a trumpet or horn without moving the notes in his or her head to allow for this difference. Finally, bass clef NEEDS to be different that bass clef -- in order for a conductor or keyboard player to be able to maintain the difference between registers while conducting or performing.

A pianist or organist would be easily confused when reading down a page if all the notes were on the same lines; the beauty of a grand- or three-line-staff is that a player can keep a reference point because the clefs are vertically grouped and arranged on differing lines and spaces.

If this were not the case, players would be much more likely to play wrong notes in wrong registers, particularly when sight-reading. Wind instruments have their basic mechanisms and ranges designed around a diatonic scale, and notation is also designed around a diatonic scale. If you tell all piano players "from now on, you'll be playing everything a minor third higher on sight", all except the most skilled ones will not be amused: their keyboard is designed around the diatonic scale of the notation as well.

In contrast, if you tell a chromatic button accordionist, he'll shrug and say "why not? Now if you take a look at accordion orchestras even in button-accordion heavy countries, you'll find a disproportionate amount of piano accordions, and part of that reason is that playing an instrument designed around the chromatic scale from a score designed around the diatonic scale requires mental acrobatics, particularly so if we are talking about polyphonic instruments.

Guitar on the amateur level is played a lot from "tablature" where the notation matches the instrument controls again. So there is quite a bit of evidence that people don't really fancy a mismatch between notation and instrument controls, and spontaneous transposition is not really a readily available basic skill. The short answer, and the one that is most practical for the performer is that the concept of a transposing instrument means that a saxophone player for example, can play all the saxophones in the range.

A tenor player does not need to relearn the fingering if he or she switches to alto. Practicality is certainly the main reason. The most popular instrument of the last 50 years, the guitar, does not sound as it is written: the guitar sounds one octave lower than written. If it wasn't, guitarists would need to read bass and treble clefs like the piano. This would make reading for the guitar very difficult indeed.

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