Re: Concert pitch question (confused ex-tuba player)

[Michael Seifert]

        Trombone player here.

        You and I play instruments that are in concert pitch.  This means that 
when you & I look at a C printed on the page, and move our fingers/slide/lips 
to play it, a C comes out of our horns.  

        A part for a “Trumpet in B-flat” is written differently.  When a 
musician playing a “B-flat trumpet” looks at a printed C on the page and plays 
it, a concert B-flat comes out.  If you wanted to rewrite such a part to be in 
concert pitch so that you or I could play it as intended, you would have to 
rewrite it with all the notes lowered by a major second;  so all the written Cs 
would be rewritten as B-flats (and we would play them as B-flats), all the 
written Cs would become Ds, and so forth.

        Similarly, when someone playing a “Horn in F” part plays a written C, 
their instrument sounds an F.  To rewrite it for a trombone or tuba in concert 
pitch, you would need to lower all the notes in the part by a perfect fourth.  

        As an aside:  don’t get confused between the fact that your tuba plays 
a B-flat on an open fingering (or that my trombone plays a B-flat when my slide 
is all the way in.)  This has nothing to do with the “transposition key” of 
your instrument.  Most trumpets, when they play an open fingering, sound a 
B-flat just like we do.  It’s just that they label their notes differently on 
the page, and what you & I call a “B-flat” they call a “C” instead. 
        By the above system, you play “Tuba in C” and I play “Trombone in C”, 
because when we see a C on the page, a C is what comes out of our horns.  It’s 
just that they're never called this because we don’t ever have transposing 
parts.  (You will occasionally see “Trumpet in C” or “Horn in C” parts;  this 
means that those parts are written in concert pitch.)

        Finally, note that trumpet players are perfectly used to this 
transposition, to the extent that “C trumpet” parts (i.e. trumpet parts in 
concert pitch) are a rarity and a nuisance, particularly if you’re not used to 
older orchestral repertoire.  If you’re planning to give this part to a trumpet 
player, leave it as it is;  they’ll know what to do with it.  Horns are more 
used to doing weird transpositions on the fly, but “Horn in F” is still the 
most common, so there’s no real need to transpose this for them either.  The 
only reason to transpose these parts into concert pitch would be to play it 
with other concert-pitch instruments (like other low brass players.)

        Take care,

        Mike Seifert 
        Quaker Hill, CT, USA