Re: Transposing Keyless Brass Parts

[Torsten Hämmerle]

Glassmenagerie wrote
> The Bb trumpet player would need to transpose
> up 7 intervals on the fly.  There is no key signature.  Quite a challenge
> for amateur players.  
> I'd like the best way to arrive at the correct notes and key signature for
> the Bb trumpet. 

Hi,

Traditionally, there are certain instruments in an orchestral score that
don't have a key signature, e.g. Timpani, Glockenspiel, Horns and sometimes
Trumpets.

The reason why Horns and Trumpets don't have a general key signature goes
back to the times when there were no valves, i.e. you only could play tones
of the harmonic series and you had to use a different instrument for each
key (hence trumpets in D, trumpets in A, trumpets in F, etc.)

Now that trumpets and French horns have valves, there is no reason not to
use key signatures and exclusively score "trumpet in Bb" and "horn in F".

Professional players are being used to on-the-fly transposition because they
just need to be able to play from traditional/old sheet music.
But, in my opinion, you can't expect that from amateur players, and when
setting a new score, there is no reason why you shouldn't use key signatures
for these instruments.


Slavonic Dance III trumpet part

I like coding sounding pitch. But, if it's easier for you, you might prefer
just copying the original.
As has been proposed by Jay, you might use Frescobaldi to convert it to
concert pitch.
It's just a matter of personal preference.

>From there, it's easy to have it transposed to wherever you want.
As an example, I stuck with your transposed coding (in F) and applied a
\transpose c' f' to get sounding pitch. From there, it's much less confusing
if you can start from sounding pitch, imho.

After that, I've set up several versions, including the original trumpet in
F (w/o key signature), trumpet in F (with key sig.), trumpet in Bb (with key
sig.) and Concert Pitch (with key sig.).

%%%%% START SNIPPET

\version "2.18.2"

trumpetI_III_F = \transpose c' f' \relative g' {
  \time 2/4
%  \key es \major
  g8[-.\p g ( aes ) aes] (
  g ) g4  g8 (
  f ) f4 f8 (
  g\<[ ) g ( f\> ees]\! )
  d4 ( c
  bes2 )
  \bar "|."
}

\score {
  <<
    \new Staff \with { instrumentName = #"in F" } \transpose f' c'
\trumpetI_III_F
    \new Staff \with { instrumentName = #"in F" } \transpose f' c' { \key as
\major \trumpetI_III_F }
    \new Staff \with { instrumentName = #"in Bb" } \transpose bes c' { \key
as \major \trumpetI_III_F }
    \new Staff \with { instrumentName = #"sounding" } { \key as \major
\trumpetI_III_F }
  >>
}

%%%%% END SNIPPET

<http://lilypond.1069038.n5.nabble.com/file/t3887/trumpet-in-f-trans.png> 

All the best,
Torsten




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