Talk:Transposing instrument

Why

With our technogy now, why can't we change trasposing instruments to non -transposing inst? Im not a clarinet player so i wonder how they play a clarinet.. but I have a question..As for example Clarinet in A, since we know that when i play Eb note i will hear C, then why not we just change the usual Eb fingering as to C fingering. THen we have less trouble in transpoing them.

Please enlight me.. thanks.

I imagine we don't change a) for historical reasons, because classical musicians want to keep playing in the same way and b) because there's no need. transposing instruments don't do so because of a lack of technology, but because it is convenient to keep the same fingering for the same note. A clarinet player sees the note "E" and fingers "E" no matter what. if you mean we should redesign the clarinet with completely different holes, then it would become a different instrument, and would have to be learned agin -- Tarquin 16:41 Feb 27, 2003 (UTC)

This question could be tackled a number of different ways.

If you mean "why aren't all parts simply written in concert pitch, and let the players learn the "real" pitches associated with a given note?", Tarquin's answer is correct when you consider the same players switch between, for example, Eb alto and Bb tenor saxes. It would greatly steepen the learning curve.

If you mean "why don't all instruments standardize on 'C as a fundamental pitch?'", there are at least two problems I can think of:

- if you want to have instruments which are roughly in the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass ranges, you're going to have to construct them so that their ranges center on notes which are about a 4th or 5th apart. Flute is in "C" - Alto Flute is in "G". Alto sax Eb, tenor sax Bb, and so on.

Granted, string players have the same situation with, for example, violins, violas, cellos and basses, and they don't transpose, but string players don't double, because they play all the time anyway. So they accept the fact that if you play violin, learning to play viola would involve a whole lot more "re-learning." Also, keep in mind that they sort of do a similar thing by using more different clefs - alto and tenor clefs in addition to the more familiar treble and bass. This is to minimize the number of ledger lines (lines to show notes above or below the clef) they have to read.

- Keep in mind that some of these transposed instruments came about not to allow extension of range, but to keep the player in more comfortable key signatures. This historically developed when wind instruments were less capable of playing all the sharps and flats, but it's still somewhat true. The best example I can think of is the Bb and A clarinets. They're only a half-step apart. Clarinetists mix them up sometimes when switching, with very bad results (I know, I'm a clarinetist!). But a Bb clarinet allows me to play in C when the concert key is Bb, in F when the concert key is Eb, and so on. I always read 2 less flats in the key signature than concert pitch. The A clarinet provides the same service in the sharp keys - I always read 3 less sharps than the concert key.

Perhaps another related question would be "why are there so many different transpositions for horns?" Why IS the alto flute in G, the english horn in F, clarinets in Ab (rare), C, Bb, A, Eb; saxes in Bb and Eb, the trumpet in Bb, E, A and so on? If they can't all be in C, why can't they all be in G or Bb or something?

Again, it's partly to allow key signatures to stay convenient, and again the A clarinet is a good example. It's worth noting that horns used mainly for orchestra work rarely transpose in Bb and Eb, and horns used mainly in bands rarely transpose in A, because orchestras play more easily in sharp keys than bands do. But it is also the result of history. These instruments were made in whatever key seemed good at the time, repertoire was built up around them, and now it's hard to change. However, lest you think musicians, composers, and arrangers are just hidebound by tradition, it is true that some of the transposing instruments have fallen by the wayside. Clarinets used to be made in lots of different pitches, but the standard soprano pair became the Bb and A and then practically all of the lower clarinets (alto, bass, contra, etc) became either Bb or Eb. Saxophones are all Bb or Eb, practically speaking.

- Gary622

Challenge to recorders

This statement:

the recorder family. While recorders are made in a variety of sizes (and hence pitches), the recorder player is expected to read music at true pitch and adjust fingering accordingly.

isn't true in my experience -- I've seen alto recorder parts in F (although it's true that recorder players are usually able transposers, and perhaps the parts I've seen were prepared by clever publishers for beginners).

Anyway, is it necessary to list instruments which aren't transposing? Why would anyone "expect" them to be? --Wahoofive 06:30, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'm wrong. They aren't transposing instruments, and my memory must be going. Still, I'm going to rewrite that section. --Wahoofive 02:21, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I find this remark questionable: "The piccolo and the soprano recorder, which are extremely high-pitched, are written an octave lower than they sound so that their music can be written easily on the treble staff." The lowest note on the soprano recorder IS commonly said to be an octave above concert middle C, and this makes sense acoustically, considering that the soprano recorder is about half the size of a flute, but there is something odd about the timbre of the recorder that makes it seem (to many ears) to sound an octave lower than this, in other words, to make the lowest soprano recorder note seem to sound a concert middle C. The best thing I think would be simply to avoid using the recorder as an example of octave transposition.

Re: "Many instruments whose ranges are extremely high or low transpose at the octave in order to make their written music easier to read." Au contraire: The guitar and the tenor voice, for example, are both octave transposing instruments, and I don't think you can reasonably maintain that their ranges are extreme. It's just that their ranges don't fit conveniently on either the concert bass clef or the concert treble clef. They both could fit well on the tenor clef, and why they don't use the tenor clef I can't say. It might be simply that use of the tenor clef and the alto clef has been waning for some time. In any case, I'm removing this "whose ranges are extremely high or low" business. --Scotch

"Many instruments whose ranges are extremely high or low transpose at the octave" is not the same as "many instruments who transpose at the octave have extremely high or low ranges." The example of guitar and tenor voice being transposed at the octave is a counterpoint to the second statement, but not the first. Furthermore, "many" is not "all" or even "most." I don't really think this is of any consequence, though... Alhead (talk) 02:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Mystery paragraph

The following paragraph (formerly with the heading "Notes") is meaningless to me:

The kind of transposition practiced by a given transposing instrument is always directly related to its fundamental pitch: an instrument in Eb always transposes to Eb (i.e. its own C will sound a concert pitch of Eb), never to Bb, D, G or any other note than Eb (in particular it follows that instruments whose fundamental pitch is C are never transposing); so to some extent being a transposing instrument (and what transposition such an instrument actually uses) has something to do with the physical properties of the instrument: at least the convention, if one wishes to call it that, is not entirely arbitrary; on the other hand it is true that there are wind instruments whose fundamental tone is a note other than C but that are not transposing instruments — see e.g. the recorder family.

It needs to be clarified or deleted.

--Wahoofive 06:30, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think it starts with a bit of a false assumption. Brass instruments have a "fundamental pitch" which is based on what notes are easiest to get out of the horn, but woodwinds don't really work this way. There is an "open note" that sounds when no keys are pressed, but it has nothing to do with the range of the horn. Bb clarinets sound a concert "F" when no keys are pressed, for example. - Gary622

This paragraph only really applies to trumpets and horns, whose fundamentals do correspond to their transpositions. However, trombones and tubas have fundamentals of Bb and Eb but almost always read C music. This raises an interesting question- is the tromobne a C instrument or a Bb one?-Hrothgar137

Trombone (and tuba) is a nontransposing B♭ instrument. In fact, largely because of this confusion here and on the trombone article, I'm actually going to bother to write an article for nontransposing instruments, which should prove to be rather short, all things considered, but may clear up this mess once and for all. --Jemiller226 19:40, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tablature is Western music notation

I removed references to "western music notation" in the third paragraph because tablature is fairly common in "western music notation" and it specifies how to produce sound. Volunteer Sibelius Salesman 17:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Rather than remove it altogether, you might better have qualified "Western music notation" with either "standard" or "traditional". --Scotch

Western music notation is considered a specific kind of notation distinct from tablature, which is not specifically Western. It was a mistake (and an ignorant one) to remove the reference. Gingermint (talk) 06:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Editing needed for clarity

I am a band director as well as a saxophone and clarinet player. Therefore, I am certainly well versed in the concept of transposition. The way this article is written is extremely confusing. The goal should not be to boost ego in throwing around as much technical jargon as possible, but to appeal to anyone from Sally the seventh grade clarinet player to Johnny the college senior. This has to be understood by anyone looking for more information on the subject relatively easily.--Jfulkerson 02:49, 21 September 2005 (UTC)Jfulkerson

All true. Feel free to lend a hand and edit the article yourself, if you wish. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:36, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to simplify it somewhat; feedback on whether or not it's helped anything would be appreciated. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Good work on the intro. The section "Other transpositions" needs work, too. I'll do it if no one beats me to it. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

AMEN! I'm one of those despised people who learns through actually placing my hands on the instrument and using my ears. I've made serious attempts at learning music notation several times, each time meeting with bitter frustration and eventually cursing the whole convoluted system as unnecessarily cryptic, so please just call me Sally the Seventh Grader. Understanding the historical context helps me see the justification for such a horrible mess, but it doesn't make it any easier to learn. It's like having to become a PhD. in linguistics when I just want to learn a second language.
MY QUESTION: Can the "List of instruments by transposition" section not be simplified? Is it realy necessary to talk of "minor seconds" and "perfect fourths" (forcing us novices to look up the corresponding articles on those terms, which are even more confounding and discouraging!), rather than "B-flat trumpet sounds a whole step lower than written (C sounds B-flat)?" Better yet, is there a reason why the instruments cannot simply be listed with their corresponding notes as they sound when concert "C" is read? For example:
Trumpet: Bb
English Horn: F
et cetera, et cetera, and leave the jargon to the professionals, who don't need to research this kind of thing on Wikipedia. I know I'm not alone. Music is an innate human quality (my assertion), and there are legions of musically inclined humans who are effectively stunted and excluded by this complex and archaic writing system which requires a very different set of skills from those associated with musical growth.

Db piccolo, no bass clarinet in A

I am a saxophonist/clarinetis/flutist/player/teacher just learning about Wikipedia; I hope this is the correct place to post this info. 1. There are some (not many) piccolos pitched in Db, I believe for band (as in Sousa) music. 2. As far as I know, there is no such thing as a bass clarinet in A, as is listed at the end of the article - they're all in Bb, transposing the same as tenor sax (down a ninth). 3. I have explained the world of transposing instruments to lots of students and I think it mainly comes down to: a. families of instruments that need to read the same way, b. instruments that don't sound as good in C as they do in Bb or Eb (esp. saxes, clarinets), and c. 'historical accident'. Note : trombones are an exception to a. and b. - they read in concert pitch (so alto trombonists do have to learn an entirely different way of reading), yet their "home" note (the note/overtone series based on first position with the slide all the way in) is a Bb. i.e., they're pitched in the same key as trumpets (octave lower), but call the notes by their concert pitch names. The key in which an instrument is pitched is based on some "home" note or scale; on woodwinds this is often the scale which involves (more or less) picking up the fingers in order from bottom to top, for brass it's the no-valve-or-slide-all-the-way-in note on which the overtone series is based. I hope this helps. As I get more familiar with Wiki world I may take a stab at clarifying some of the explanations in the article.

67.67.223.140 16:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, and welcome to Wikipedia! Don't be afraid to wade right in and start editing articles. If you can improve the section on "reasons for transposing instruments", go for it. I have added the high Db piccolo to the listing as you suggested, but I'm leaving the bass clarinet in A because the article on Bass clarinet mentions it – if you're dubious, ask on the talk page of that article for some evidence. This is sort of a summary page and it makes sense for this to reflect the content of the pages on the individual instruments; the Db piccolo is described on the piccolo page, and they even mention one in Ab. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:46, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! --Craig Stuntz 03:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

"It was the Bb bass clarinet that became a member of the orchestra from the mid-nineteenth century; instruments in A were also in use at least in areas under the German influence." -- Nicholas Shackleton, "The Development of the Clarinet", in "The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet", Colin Lawson (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. --Rsholmes 03:35, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

First section rewrite

I don't want to make a major change without discussion/input of more experienced Wikipedia users. I've rewritten the first section to try to clarify some issues. I think an understanding of "concert pitch" is useful to establish from the outset, and I think the section on transposing keyboards is confusing and misleading, since it's using a different meaning of the word "transposing":

A transposing instrument is a musical instrument whose music is written at a pitch different from the actual "concert pitch". Concert pitch is the pitch as notated for piano (or any other non-transposing instrument) - e.g., the note "C" on piano is a concert C. On a transposing instrument, a concert C is written as another note. On the surface, this may be confusing, but there are several reasons for the existence of transposing instruments. The difference between a transposing instrument and a non-transposing instrument is only in whether or not the music is written at its sounding (concert) pitch; there is nothing about the physical construction of an instrument that makes the difference.

There are several reasons an instrument may be a transposing instrument:

1- Some instruments belong to a family of instruments of different sizes (and, therefore, sounding at different pitches), such as the clarinet or the saxophone family. Musicians can read the same notes on the page for each instrument in the family without having to learn new fingerings. For example, the note that is written as middle C for the alto saxophone and the tenor saxophone is fingered the same on each instrument, but the alto's sounding pitch will be higher than the tenor's.

2- Some instruments have a range that is too high or too low for their music to be easily written on the staff. In this case the music is written either an octave higher or lower than it sounds, in order to reduce the use of ledger lines. Instruments that “transpose at the octave” are not playing in a different key from concert pitch instruments, but are sounding an octave higher or lower than written.

3- Because of sound and tone quality issues, some C (concert pitch) instruments – saxophones in C (the C melody and C soprano) and the C soprano clarinet, for example – have declined in popularity in favor of the currently more standard versions (Bb soprano and tenor sax, Eb alto and baritone; Bb and A clarinets).

4- Historically, some instruments have come to be accepted (and widely manufactured) with a certain transposition as a standard.

Special-T 06:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing "actual" about concert pitch. An oboe's notation is in no way more real or "actual" than a Bb clarinet's notation. This is all relative. I'm removing the term "actual". --Scotch

major re-org

I have substantially reorganized and rewritten this article; I hope to have made it clearer. I am a rookie editor, so if I have been too bold in editing, or breached some etiquette, let me know, and revert/edit/reorganize. Special-T 14:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Great Highland Bagpipe questions

I don't know that this instrument, which, according to User:Josephbrophy sounds about a semitone higher than the written pitch, is a transposing instrument, or is just subject to a different pitch standard. Meanwhile, I fixed the spelling and syntax of his edit. I will cross-post this to his talk page. Special-T 01:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

the defintion of a transposing instrument as taken from the first line of the article is: A transposing instrument is a musical instrument whose music is written at a pitch different from the actual "concert pitch". and that is what is going on with the highland bagpipe. 100 years ago, the Low A on the chanter was concert pitch at A4 440 hertz. Today chanters are made that play around b4 flat or 475 to 480 hertz. The reason for this is simple; expert players believe it sounds better. music teachers that i know say it is a transposing instrument because the is written Lo G, Lo A, B, etc, but played one semitone higher. the pitch standards for the great highland bagpipe is an entirely different subject since the pipe scale is based on an old gaelic vocal scale. joe 02:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The GHB isn't a transposing instrument in any conventional sense of the word. It uses a different pitch standard, but transposing instruments typically use the same pitch standard as non-transposing instruments even though they sound different notes for the same value on the score. However, in traditional music the GHBs don't tend to be played with other instruments — they are played solo or with other GHBs. Also, the music as written isn't conventional; accidentals and key signatures are omitted since there is really only one mode possible on the instrument. They are also typically tuned to just intonation rather than equal temperament. All in all I'd say it's misleading to group it with other transposing instruments as it's really a special case. --Craig Stuntz 13:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Craig, you just articulated my misgivings accurately. While I appreciate Joe's info and contribution, special cases like this tend to increase confusion about transposing instruments rather than clarify. I'll remove the reference. Special-T 16:40, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

i will not be able to respond to this action until tomorrow. if you want to remove the reference then you ought to change the definiition of a transposing instrument. will respons tomorrow. joe 17:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Given the issues above, it is confusing to use this instrument as a canonical example of a transposing instrument in this article. Certainly list it and put it in the category; neither Craig nor I is arguing against it being called a transposing instrument. Given its use of a different notation system, its non-adherence to orchestral/band pitch standards (as I understand it, the note it reads as "A" is not exactly a Bb), and its use in all-bagpipe groups, though, it is a confusing, and therefore less-than-ideal example to use. Special-T 19:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

i am sorry but i believe you are missing the big picture about the bagpipe. the bagpipe was the first transposing instrument and is a transposing insturment.

this is a bit long winded but let me respond to the points made:

1. the bagpipe is not a just intonation instrument. it is a natural intonation instrument and a lot more. the uilleann pipe is equal tempered just like the pennywhistle. go to your listing of the pennywhistle in wikipedia and you will see it listed as a transposing instrument.

2. chanters for the uilleann pipe are made to play every semitone over two octaves from Lo D to D to Hi D, just like a piano. chanters are made in the key of D, C, B Natural, C#, B flat, E Flat. Most are used by professional uilleann pipers. They use the Irish repertoire in D, or G and play from D sheet music.

3. Chanters for the Cauld wind pipe and Border pipes, both of which i also play, are made in a number of different keys. We all use the same sheet music. just like the pennywhistle. My pipes were made by Hamish Moore, who is also my teacher. You can find him on google under hamish moore.

4. If you go to Hamish Moore's website, you will find a number of different pipes, including 2 highland pipes, one in Concert A and the other in B Flat. I have on old wooden chanter in concert A. So there is no special pitch standards regarding the pipes.

5. The highland pipe was used for Piobaireacd in Concert A years ago. The scale was based on an old gaelic vocal scale which is mixolydian in character. Many chanters are made following the mixolydian pattern. But not all.

6, A highland chanter can be constructed in equal temperment and different scales, and keys can be added to it like the brien boru chanter. So there are many modes possible. In fact, there are several pentatonic modes available on the existing chanter and tunes have been written specifically for the modes. And it becomes very obvious when a tune contains two modes and the shifts from one mode to asnother.

7. most of the pipe music you all see is band pipe music and is devoid of all key signatures and accidentals. But bands focus on a very small repertoire that is memorized. I have pleanty of pipe music that conforms to the canonical form.

8. i am sure that everything i have said here also applies to the cornemuse and northumbrian pipes.

9. finally, the bagpipe synthesizer, specifically the one made by george boyd, which i sponsored, is all of the above. it is canonical, equal tempered, just anonotated, or whatever you want. any scale, any key, etc. because it is a synthesizer. But we all play to the same sheet music. it too is a tansforming instrument.

i hope this helps and i would be happy to answer any questions. joe 02:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Mixing the GHBs with other pipes does not clarify the issue. The GHBs are very different from, for example, the Uilleann pipes in nearly every respect with regards to pitch and notation. Now the definition of transposing instrument may be a bit imprecise in this article, but the point of it is that when playing "standard" notation there is a different pitch sounded than written. As GHBs use a custom system of notation and the vast majority of instruments are not at A=440 Hz this isn't really true. This is unlike the Uilleann pipes where their music is written in conventional notation and the vast majority are at A = 440 Hz.

Yes, there are "flat" and other non-standard pitch sets in both the GHB and the Uilleann world. But an unqualified set of Uilleann pipes would be pitched in D and an unqualified GHB set would be A mixolydian, and this is true for the majority of sets in use. Talking about far less common pitches only muddies the issue.

Finally, this is a digression, but the Uilleann pipes aren't tuned to equal temprament, generally (see the article) and the whistle isn't really a fixed pitch instrument at all. --Craig Stuntz 03:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Craig: oh well; we are doing a kabuki dance.

your article says or implies: "...the instruments discussed in this article, which have set pitches but merely do not read their music at concert pitch"

you need to change the definition somehow. you also should eliminate pennywhistle as a transforing instrumet.

the uilleann pipes can be tuned to equal temperament but are not normally; but you would have to ask davy spillane or paddy moloney.

the various bagpipes are increasingly used in concerts and are tuned accordingly.

joe 15:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

bagpipe is a transposing instrument

i am sitting here reading book 3, Structured Learning, published by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association. It was written by a distinguished group of nine musicians.

On page 3.7.1 it says: "in all tansposing instruments (such as the Great Highland Bagpipe and most woodwind and brass instruments), the written notes represent the fingering as opposed to the pitch of the sounds produced."

I am hoping I can get to interview the top players within the next few months, to get their opinions on a number of musical issues. If i get lucky i might catch Paddy Moloney, chieftains.

I am also trying to connect with my piano teacher, crag najjar. he is a producer and show biz person and was professor of music at the Berkeley School in Boston. i need his opinion.

i dont want to drop the issue because i beleive i am right in my analysis. but if wrong, i will drop the issue. i am only interested in the facts. somewehere in the world there is the recognized expert on transposing instruments and i will find him. joe 21:13, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Do note that an interview you conduct or a scholar you ask would be original research, and can't be used here. The book reference is usable here, though. --Craig Stuntz 00:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

bummer!

in a few days i will attempt to insert some info on the bagpipes. if you do no think it fits, please delete it. joe 01:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Re: "The book reference is usable here, though." It just so happens, however, that the passage in the book referenced is nonsense. All you can say generally is that a transposing instrument does not read concert pitch, in other words, that the sound of a given one of its notes (notated pitch) does not correspond to the sound of the same note as played by a certain body of other instruments. "Written notes" (a redundant phrase) do not "represent the fingering" for transposing instruments any more than they do for other instruments. Numerals placed above notes--in the case of the piano and string instruments, at least--represent fingering, not notes. --Scotch

No, it's not nonsense, though it could have been more clearly expressed. You are being unreasonably narrow in your interpretation of 'fingering'. It is true that the note in the score does not directly tell the player which fingers (or holes) to use. But it does represent the fingering in the sense of a particular (learned) pattern of fingers (or holes), irrespective of which instrument in a family if being played.

Please sign your contribution with four tildes (~~~~) --ColinFine 21:29, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, "nonsense" is a figure of speech of course. It's obvious what the writer means, but he hasn't said it, and I don't think I'm being "unreasonably narrow" at all. Sure, an instrumentalist who switches among saxophones (alto, tenor, and baritone, say) uses the same fingering to play the same given note, but that does not mean in any way at all that his written notes represent fingerings rather than pitch. They represents pitch just as much as written notes for non-transposing instruments represent pitch. The important point to grasp here is that pitch notation is relative. TheScotch 03:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"It was written by a distinguished group of nine musicians." Nonsense. They play the bagpipes! Gingermint (talk) 06:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The pipes are not a transposing instrument. Gingermint (talk) 06:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

See also

You may find this template quite useful for describing pitch ranges. Vandykee 10:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Saxes in C and F

The saxophone article asserts that some of Sax's envisioned "orchestral" saxes in C and F were never made. I'm not aware of any instances of any other than the C-melody and the F-mezzo, though I'd be happy to learn otherwise. I think the remaining C and F saxes should be delisted unless they can be shown to exist. -- Rsholmes 11:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Characteristic of instrument, or notational convention?

It seems to me that whether or not something is a "transposing instrument" is less a characteristic of the instrument than a matter of the convention for writing music for that instrument. I think that saying something along those lines would help many readers. Also,the talk about "using a transposing instrument" is somewhat misleading. Most of the relevant text is really about the reasons for using a transposed notation, not the reasons for using that instrument. 151.200.237.145 23:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Your first point is well taken; the opening paragraph could use some serious editing for clarity. However, your second point is weak: "transposing instrument" is the term used by musicians, and Wikipedia isn't the place to promote idealized jargon. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I didn't suggest changing the title of the article or banning the term "transposing instrument". I don't know that musicians would talk about "reasons for using a transposing instrument" rather than, say, "reasons for using transposed notation", but it doesn't really matter. The latter is a much clearer statement of what the article is addressing. It doesn't address why one might use a trumpet (a transposing instrument) rather than a tuba (a non-transposing instrument). Rather, it addresses why one would write music for the trumpet using a transposing convention. In my own field I use all kinds of terminological shortcuts in the course of a day that would be inappropriate for an encyclopedia article, or even for formal writing directed at others in my field. 151.200.237.145 22:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Baritone horn

Article currently reads:

Instruments in B♭ (low) — sounds an octave and a major second below what is written

• B♭ bass clarinet
• Tenor saxophone
• Euphonium when written in treble clef (British brass band music)
• Baritone horn when written in treble clef (British brass band music)
• Tenor trombone when written in treble clef (British brass band music)

In my experience, Baritone horn music is generally (not just in British brass band music) written in treble clef, as a B-flat transposing instrument. - Special-T 02:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. I've been playing baritone and euphonium for over 8 years, and I've found that music is published in both bass clef as C and treble clef as a B-flat transposing instrument. In fact, I was taught in bass clef C, and learned treble B-flat just because there were so many people who came to baritone from B-flat trumpet and to keep the fingerings the same, they played B-flat treble music. This is simply speaking from American experience, I really don't have any idea how baritone music works in other countries, but I've heard that in Britain, its all treble B-flat. Angelofmusic0909 (talk) 05:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

{{reflist}}

Please use that template for the references, or whatever it is, because there are notes in the current reference scheme that are not references.70.74.35.144 (talk) 02:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Subject and predicate?

"Instruments in C (8va) — sounds an octave above what is written"

Is that a malformed sentence? Replacing the dashes by "produce" or "emit" would make sense, and changing "sounds" to "sound" (assuming it's a verb) would make sense, too, but as it stands, that sequence of words is confusing. Unfree (talk) 20:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Conducting score

I have a problem with the sentence "The advantage of traditional practice is that it facilitates spoken communication in rehearsal since conductor and player are looking at the same notation." It's not that I disagree with it: it's that I don't understand what it means. Who wrote it? It seems to suggest that a transposed score has an advantage over scores in C because it saves you the trouble of transposing. But this is obviously absurd. (If the conductor has trouble transposing from the score in C in order to communicate with the player, then he certainly will have trouble reading the full transposed score!) Can the sentence be improved?--72.225.250.121 (talk) 05:29, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Transposing at the octave?

Is an instrument (such as a contrabassoon) which transposes one octave lower than written, but still plays a C as a C considered a "Transposing instrument" in terms of terminology? There is a section in this article, but I've never heard of these kinds of instruments described as transposing instruments. If they aren't, they shouldn't be mentioned in this article (except in the negative saying that such instruments aren't called transposing instruments, as is mentioned for keyboards). Someone let me know and I'll make the appropriate edit. Even if they are considered transposing, the article needs some changes in that case as well. TheHYPO (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

They are transposing instruments. - Special-T (talk) 19:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Current common practice in guitar scores for rock, country, and folk music is the treble staff is one octave lower (not higher) than concert pitch. For example in the widely used guitar music composition software, 'guitarpro5', middle C on the gp5 treble staff is C3 (130.813 Hz), one octave lower than concert middle C (C4, 261.626 Hz). I cannot speak to common practice in guitar scores for classical music, nor for concert musicians. I cannot speak to the use of the phrase, "transposing instruments" as this article is the first use I have seen, other than to say the article has been clarifying for me and helpful. Gdmoore (talk) 23:06, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

As you say, the written middle C sounds an octave lower than written. That means, of course, that it is written an octave higher than concert pitch (the opposite of your first sentence). Guitar is listed correctly as sounding an octave lower than written. - Special-T (talk) 23:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Working to understand. Restating, the concert pitch of middle C on a guitar, expressed in Hz, is 130.813. Therefore, the treble staff of a guitar score is said to be written one octave higher than the guitar sounds. Gdmoore (talk) 02:01, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Fundamental pitch and sight-transposition

I have restored an earlier version of the article, adding the info that the set of overtones available on brass instruments does not include the fundamental. The other info in recent good-faith edits by User:Kan8eDie was either WP:OR, or not supported by the website references given. The website reference for sight-transposition being common among school-age players states the opposite - it says that the most that is expected at that level is the ability to name the concert pitch of a single note. Sight transposition is reading actual music in a different key from which it is written - clearly an expert skill. The reference for the overtone series does not refer to the overtones available on a trumpet with a given fingering, but rather analyzes the overtones present in a single pitch. - Special-T (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The websites were quick googles, and you are right that they were not very good. I am hunting for some good sources, because I want to get this right, but I know that in our school orchestra (a not very good one) we rarely got given the right transpositions for Haydn, Mozart etc. While not good sources, I will put here some interim refs to show I am not crazy, and that rather for a trumpet player sight transposition is "clearly" a basic required skill: ABRSM syllabus clearly notes that by grade 8 fluency in transposition of grade 6 pieces is expected. Grade 8 is the bare minimum you need to bash through the majority of the orchestral repertoire (but certainly not all), so is about right for 17 old. This is discussed all over the internet, in as many forums as you care to google for. Essentially, by the time you are playing 'proper' music, trumpeters need to be of nearly the same standard when transposing and not.

To clarify my technical quibble about the overtones, the page analyses the frequencies for a single note, but these are the same resonant frequencies the trumpet 'slots into' on higher harmonics. The basic point is the trumpets acts like it has standard (open cylindrical) harmonic series, but through the shaping of the mouthpiece, lead, and bell, this is not a 'real' series, but a faked one (as shown for example by the tuning of the low pedal F and Bflat, and high D). This is a minor quibble, so not really worth pursuing ("..which form the overtone series..." is not quite as pedantically accurate as this mathematician would like, but it is not unbearable).

Also, regarding C trumpets, I again have no books to hand, but this forum post should at least let you see where I am coming from.

Sorry for editing out of my area of expertise, and taking my poorly-supported changes in good faith. I normally add lots of quality paper references to articles, and only added what I did because the article is already so woefully poorly referenced that it seemed it would not detract. I will back off and stop editing music articles until I acquire a good enough library in this area to demonstrate my claims. —Kan8eDie (talk) 16:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Silly me! I forgot that I have the Grove around somewhere, and the Oxford companion. I will use these if I have time (which at a first glance support me). —Kan8eDie (talk) 16:04, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Right. The relevant quotations would be "Many players, ... use the B♭ instrument for all keys, making the transposition mentally" from ""Transposing Instruments." The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev. Ed. Michael Kennedy. Oxford Music Online. 19 Nov. 2008 <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e10390>." and (talking about professional players only here) "Indeed, modern trumpeters, because of the variety of musical styles in which they are required to play and the perfection demanded of them in broadcast and recorded performances, need at least three or four instruments, including ones pitched in B♭ and in C for regular work, in D/E♭ and in high B♭/A." from "Margaret Sarkissian and Edward H. Tarr. "Trumpet." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 19 Nov. 2008 <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/49912>."

These high-quality sources only talk about professional players, but a quick google will confirm that it is a required skill for trumpeters in even many school orchestras, certainly not "expert" at all. I leave it up to to you how to use these citations and manage the article as you want.—Kan8eDie (talk) 16:17, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

What is transposing?

I believe that the term "transposing instrument" is misleading, however frequently used by some. The word 'trans-posed' indicates a change in position. So, in that sense, a transposing instrument is one which has changed its position - as a flute player sitting in the trombone section. In the current context, it actually refers to the written material rather than the instrument itself. Having worked in a professional orchestra library for over 20 years, I can say that you will rarely hear the term "transposing instrument" among orchestral players because they don't think about it that way - it is the music which is transposed not the instrument. And, when they ask, "What is the transposition?" they are asking about the music not the instrument.

With that in mind, I think it would be helpful not to use the term "transposing instrument." After all, when a saxophone plays a note, a certain frequency is produced and that frequency is defined acoustically as an A, B, C, etc.; never mind what is written, it's just a sound in the listener's ear. This what we are calling "concert pitch," the sound that comes out of any musical instrument without regard to notation. Now, when it comes to writing that note in musical notation we can do that in several ways: either notate the actual pitch being produced, or write another note representing the one actually produced. We could also invent a new symbol to represent that note even though it may be an impediment to reading it.

Taking the piccolo example, we could write the actual pitches produced by the instrument. The music would probably have at least 2 or more, up to maybe 10 or more, ledger lines. Eventually somebody is going to say, "Hey, I'm going blind looking at this. Can we find an easier way to write this music?" The answer in this case is to write the notes one octave lower. Wow, that makes it a lot easier to read and to write. Then, everyone agrees that from now on, all piccolo parts will be written one octave below the acoustically defined pitch, concert pitch.

Now, someone comes in with a hollow tube with a bunch of holes punched in it. "What is that? What key is it in? I don't know, but listen to the lovely music you can make with it." In order to communicate in written music for this unknown instrument, we simply must devise a one-to-one relationship between the pitches as they are fingered and the type of note we want to write. If this instrument produces an F# with all the holes closed, we could write an F# in conventional notation. Open one hole, and a G# comes out - write G# on the staff. If this instrument is found to produce an F# major scale then we could write it just as it sounds. Or, we could simplify it by saying, let's agree that whenever we write for this instrument, we are going to write relative to C instead of F#. This makes it a lot easier to read and quicker to write, plus I don't have so many accidentals to play. We have just created a transposed part for this instrument without changing the instrument at all. We could call it Tube-with-holes in F#.

Basically, it is my opinion that transposing is done in order to facilitate the reading, writing and execution of music for a particular instrument because of that instrument's playing characteristics.

Here, I'm not trying to start an argument, just thinking out loud about my suggestions on an approach to clarifying the article.

All of this only applies to ensemble playing because for example, a violin can read a clarinet part in A and play the notes as long as they are playing alone. It's only when playing with others, that the matter of transposing become important.

Sheste (talk) 21:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

1- The term is in general use. e.g., "All transposing instruments...must be notated in their customary transpositions..." - Kurt Stone, "Music Notation in the Twentieth Century". 2- Yes, transposition is to help the player. They could all read in concert pitch, but it would be much more difficult in many situations. 3- Strictly speaking, it doesn't just apply to ensemble playing - a violinist could read the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A, and the melodies would be "the same", but of course it wouldn't be the pitches that were written, so it's not exactly the same music. - Special-T (talk) 23:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

To your point no. 3, I certainly agree that it is not the same music. I realize that many works have been written which exploit the characteristics of certain keys and the sound of the instruments executing those keys; not to mention the ability of players to perform in certain keys. But yet, we mainly recognize tunes, not by the keys they are in but rather by the intervalic and rhythmic relationships of the pitches. In other words, it's the space between the notes that counts and to a lesser extent, the notes themselves. For that reason, a person with perfect pitch would recognize a melody even if it was not in the original key with the original instrument reading the original transposition. This is why I say it's mainly an ensemble issue.

As for the Kurt Stone reference, even though he uses the term "transposing instruments," the book is totally about notation. In that section , on pg. 71, he is talking about scores and parts which is the notation aspect of transposition - this is exactly what I am saying: transposition is about notation. Sheste (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

You may opine that 'it would be helpful not to use the term "transposing instrument." ', but it is certainly and verifiably in general use. I just picked the first book that came to hand to provide an example (Kurt Stone). The next two books on my shelf also use the term. David Pino's "The Clarinet and Clarinet Playing", p. 25 - 'Clarinets and saxophones ...are "transposing" woodwinds...'; Samuel Adler's "The Study of Orchestration", p. 156 - "A transposing instrument produces pitches that sound different from what is notated in the score." Transposition is about the notation, but it's also (usually) about some physical characteristic of the instrument that led musicians/composers to start notating the music in a transposed form - the article tries to cover both of these points.

Thanks for raising these issues - this is certainly one of the more confusing areas of music to explain, and if you can help clarify the article, please do so. You would certainly have access to lots of high-quality reference material! - Special-T (talk) 18:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reading and responding. This article just came to my attention in the midst of a transposition project. We are performing excerpts fro Elektra which calls for 8 clarinets: Eb, 4 Bb/A, 2 Bassets, and bass. We only have 7 players so I have the task of putting what I can of the 4th clarinet part into other parts as necessary. It's a real workout, not that I need the practice. I've really been immersed in this whole transposition thing and thinking about it for several days now. You are right when you say it's confusing to explain. It seems like people have different ways of looking at it. What we need is a unified theory of transposition sort of like in physics. Sheste (talk) 19:28, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Transposition History

The earliest example of transposition I could find comes from the book "The History of Orchestration" by Adam Carse, (London 1925). He explains that in the opera productions of London around 1735-1763, when the natural horn (no crooks) was used, it was customary to write the part one octave above sounding pitch with a key signature. The score would show, for example, mezzo-soprano clef with one flat and a note written on the third space, an F. By removing the flat and substituting a treble clef, the same written note on the third space became a written C. This enabled the player to read the part for his instrument in F. This clef substitution worked for other horn keys as well. Horn in D appeared in the score in alto clef with two sharps but the horn player, reading in treble clef that same written note on the third space which was a D in alto clef became a C in treble clef.

This example leads me to believe that clef substitution was the first method of transposition and was used by horn players. Sheste (talk) 04:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Changing lede

Still trying to make that lede more accurate and clear. Any thoughts on this:

A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which the written notes differ from concert pitch. The concert pitch which sounds when playing a written C determines the key of that instrument's transposition. For example, a written C played on a B♭ clarinet produces a concert B♭.

- Special-T (talk) 22:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Here is my humble suggestion - may not be of any help but here goes: A transposing instrument is a musical instrument whose written notes have been transposed from concert pitch. In other words, for a transposing instrument the sounding notes differ from the written notes by a defined interval. The concert pitch which sounds when playing a written C usually determines the transposition or key of that instrument. Sheste (talk) 04:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Include vocal music?

In barbershop music the lead and tenor parts are written an octave above the actual pitch in the treble clef. This is done to separate the voices and because the range of the parts falls more naturally on the G clef. --BenJackson (talk) 20:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

But the article is about transposing instruments. - Special-T (talk) 01:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

No instruments transposed in E?

I think that there are some instruments that are transposed in E, like the horn from a composition, like, "In the Hall of the Mountain King", by Grieg. Why is this?

125.60.235.220 (talk) 06:35, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Not 100% sure, but I think you're mistaken. - Special-T (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I meant, instruments transposed in E, not E-flat.

125.60.235.220 (talk) 04:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

G Bugles

I'm fairly certain that within the G bugle family, the soprano bugle is comparable in tubing length to mellophone bugles, and thus sounds a fourth below, not a fifth above, written pitch. Some manufacturers did produce "piccolo soprano" bugles, half the size and twice the pitch of standard sopranos, but these were rare.

Regarding French Horn bugles, early models had the same fundamental as a baritone bugle, but as bugles evolved and became more refined, the fundamental was brought up an octave to mellophone bugle range.

I hesitate to make any of these edits without citing an authoritative source, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.136.116.91 (talk) 21:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Do buglers routinely read written music? And is it transposed to conform with the overtone series of the instrument? If the answer to either of these is "no", then I don't think they're transposing instruments - it's all about the notation standard, not the fundamental pitch. - Special-T (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Convention

It should be made more clear that the whole thing is a matter of convention, that there is no physical difference between transposing instruments and non-transposing instruments, that in fact in some cases (such as the trombone and trumpets in German church choirs) the very same instrument may be transposing or non-transposing depending on who plays it using which tradition. I found the whole concept very confusing until I realized this simple fact which isn't made obvious in the article. -- 92.226.88.27 (talk) 01:31, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I have now modified the intro to clarify this. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Tinwhistles

Tin whistles (pennywhistles) are an exception to the usual scheme for transposing woodwinds: their home scale is generally written as D major rather than C major. This results in the common D whistle being a "nontransposing" instrument.

Whistles in other keys are usually treated as transposing instruments relative to this: on a C whistle, a written C would sound as B♭, and a written D would sound as C. On an F whistle, a written C would sound as E♭, and a written D would sound as F.

I mentioned this as an "exception" for woodwinds, along with the bassoon (that doesn't transpose) that's currently part of "Mechanical and physical considerations". Is there a better place for these exceptions?

AnotherOnymous (talk) 06:32, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a tin whistle is basically a kind of recorder, which are typically written at concert pitch (or at the octave). Methinks there are so many exceptions that the premise of this whole section is a crock. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:44, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Looking at orchestra/band woodwinds (flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons, saxes - not recorders & whistles), bassoon seems to be the exception to the "pick up your fingers in order and you get a C scale" way of thinking about it. I think it's a valid section, but then again, I probably wrote a lot of it several years ago. - Special-T (talk) 23:37, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The clarinet is a half-exception, since its low register is F-fingering (like the bassoon) but its second register is C-fingering, like most other woodwinds. The cor anglais is another exception, when notated in the old Italian fashion, in the bass clef (as in Rossini's Overture to William Tell). As far as tin whistles are concerned, they are not recorders (which are distinguished by the use of a thumb hole), and when one says their basic scale is "in D", this assumes six-finger D, not the seven-finger note one assumes for the flute, oboe, or saxophone. It used to be customary to refer to transverse flutes in the same way, because the classical one-keyed flute had six-finger D as the lowest note. I don't know how tin whistles are notated, however; the only whistle players I know (including myself, in the days when I used to play them) play mainly by ear, not from written music. The section of the article Tin_whistle#Notation may be of some use here. Fifes are also six-finger instruments and come in various keys but, once again, I have no idea what the notational conventions may be, since I have only ever played them by ear.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:34, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Maybe the right solution is to just rewrite the section so it says "in some cases this is the reason for transposition", rather than its current rule-with-exceptions phrasing. Then we could just list the instruments which abide by the rule and ignore the others, since the reasons for why transpositions were implemented are various and in many cases unknown. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd much rather see the emphasis be on band/orchestra instruments. They're the ones for which much music has been written (and read) with standardized transpositions that have been established over time. Plus I'd wager that 99.999% of questions/interest in the subject of transposing wind instruments is in this area. Mentioning tinwhistles? Great. Saying that they merit this much weight as a significant counter-example to the "rule" mentioned is misleading. - Special-T (talk) 19:07, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Reorganization of list

I've just made a major edit, and I wanted to take the time to explain it here in detail (probably excessive detail, now that I'm reading it over). What I've done is to reorganize the list of instruments by transposition to make it easier to use for reference.

• I split the different types into article sections instead of a bulleted list, so that someone looking for a specific transposition type can simply click on it from the table of contents.
• I've organized everything at the top level by key, with subsections for specific types (e.g. high, low). This makes a lot more sense to me than going by size of transposition interval (i.e. all "high" transpositions, then all "regular" transpositions—I've kept this order for the subsections within each section).
• I've added the qualifier "regular" to transposition types that didn't have one before. I'm not sure whether "high," "very high" and the like are useful, but that's for another edit and another discussion.
• The D♭ piccolo had been mistakenly listed under the header "instruments in D"; I've fixed this.
• I've standardized instruments as being referred to as "[key] [instrument]," rather than as "[instrument] in [key]" (e.g. "F trumpet" instead of "trumpet in F").
• I've added wikilinks to some instruments that previously lacked them.
• I've also added a section of non-transposing instruments.

I think these changes should greatly improve the list's utility. Skiasaurus (skē’ ə sôr’ əs) 21:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

What a mess!

I'm as guilty as all the others but this article seems destined to forever remain a heap of information. And the more information is being added the more confusing I'm sure it all gets for someone who comes to this article without knowing anything. I was looking at the first version of the article, that of June 14 2002, created by someone somewhere in (apparently) Yorkshire, England (if IP assignments for England have not radically changed since 2002). It was a very short article but it made sense. A beginner could grasp simply by reading it what the point of instrument transposition was. Of course many many details were left out and the style was a bit careless, "conversational", not very academic. Most people nowadays on WP would think it didn't sound serious enough. But the information was clear and much of the clear explanation that version was providing got somehow edited out along the way. Now the article aims at being comprehensive, it contains a lot more information and maybe even more or less all the information that will ever be relevant but with no very clear structure. I wonder what can be done about it. Contact Basemetal here 21:53, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree entirely. There is so much "information" here that the reader cannot possibly learn anything useful. For one thing, why are there whole paragraphs listing instruments that do not transpose? This is a bit like having an article on France that lists and discusses all countries that are not France. The clutter could also be reduced by removing the very long list of "All Possible Instruments That Do, Did Once, or One Day Might Transpose" to its own "article", where the obsessive-compulsive could while away their time trying to think of instruments that have been left out. Once the garbage has been hauled away, it would be worth looking at the organization of what is left. In its current form, there appears to be a long succession of subsections in no particular order. Why, for example, should "Mechanical and physical considerations" be on a different hierarchical level from "Historical reasons", "Tone and sound quality", and "Reconciling pitch standards", and why do these occur in the order that they do? (Not to mention the question of whether some of these belong in the article at all.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:26, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I second this proposal: the first step should be cleaning. Cleaning should involve in my opinion:

• as Jerome Kohl's proposing getting rid of the list of transposing instruments and make it its own list article
• getting rid of that "transposition at the octave" business: "transposition at the octave" belongs in articles dealing with 8vas or clefs; it is not transposition as understood by most of the literature I'm aware of (this should also go for the proposed article listing transposing instruments: information about instruments transposing at the octave should go in articles dealing with 8vas or clefs, not in that article, in my opinion, but for the moment let's leave it as it is and just be thankful that we got rid of some of the clutter in this article; one thing at a time)
• instruments that are "non-transposing-even-though-they-would-be-expected-to-be": it's not a crazy as Jerome Kohl makes it sound (it would be more like including in an article about France information about countries that are not France but would be expected to be, such as Belgium :-), but it is confusing enough; detailed information should go into articles dealing with those instruments (recorders, etc.); a short observation in the introductory paragraph of the article should simply mention that not all instruments that come in "families" are necessarily transposing instruments
• generally speaking only information relevant to the player of a transposing instrument, and information that applies to transposing instruments in general, and is not specific to only one or a small number of such instruments, is really useful here in the sense that it would not be confusing to people coming to this article; thus the complications about French horns should go into the article about French horns; thus information about the conductor's score and other forms of score where transposing instrument parts appear (or not) in transposed form should go into an article or articles detailing the various forms of scores used in Western classical music for various instrument combinations, along, incidentally, with information about the score (e.g. for the orchestral score that the strings are at the bottom of the system, woodwinds at the top, where the voices go, etc.) that has nothing to do with transposing instruments; after all such information is of interest not to someone looking for information on transposing instruments but to someone looking at an orchestral score and wondering "why on earth is the French horn in this score written in another key than the other instruments"?; similarly the paragraph on enharmonic transposition should go into such articles dealing with what scores look like (again it is a score problem, not a transposing instrument problem: to the sax player it doesn't matter that his A-flat part actually ought to be a G-sharp part, this is only of interest to the reader of the orchestral score)
• all that business about harmoniums with a transposing keyboard, electronic keyboards with a transpose function, string instruments played with scordatura or a capo, timpani, should go; it is true that in all those cases we have the same idea that transposing instruments implement, namely that the musical notation is used not to indicate a note but to indicate what the player is supposed to do to produce the desired note; but it would be a stretch to call all these "transposing instruments" at least in the sense of the word used in the article; after all in all these cases the instrument itself doesn't change: to say that a guitar with a capo on the 3rd fret is a different instrument from a guitar with a capo on the 5th fret or no capo at all, or that a pair of timpani tuned in A-D is a different instrument from a pair of timpani tuned in C-F the same way that a B-flat clarinet is a different instrument than an A clarinet would be pushing it; again that information should be transferred to other articles

When cleaning is finally done we could discuss how to rearrange whatever is left in a more rational way.

Contact Basemetal here 15:13, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking I'd wait to see if there was consensus but since Wahoofive already acted I thought I'd go ahead too. Of course if there are objections things can always be reverted. If you agree with the premises and would like to improve this article along the lines discussed here, rather than throwing away information please find an appropriate article to transfer it to. If you have any objections, please do not hesitate to state them, even though the cleaning has already started. Contact Basemetal here 18:14, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest we create an article with a name like List of instruments by transposition and dump most of the listicle stuff there. I'm nervous about deleting specialized areas like scordatura without making sure its info is mentioned elsewhere and that it gets linked or put in a "see also" section. —Wahoofive (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I've created an article called List of musical instruments by transposition. I've deleted nothing from WP. All the information about scordatura that was here is now in article scordatura and all the information about timpani is now in article timpani. The "see also" section could contain links to these articles. I think the main thing that remains to be done before rearranging the article on a more rational basis would be to figure out where to put the information about the conductor's score. I gave my reason why I thought that information belongs in an article about scores rather than here, but I'm waiting to see what other people think. Contact Basemetal here 21:24, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Just one small observation about Belgium ;-) Just as the Belgians might be puzzled about why anyone might think they should be part of France, I am puzzled about why people should suppose that instruments that come in families ought to use transposition. This sounds like something only a saxophone player could possibly think, since all of the common sizes of that instrument are transposing (perhaps this would also apply to hornists, since horns in C are exceedingly rare). Certainly no violinist would ever think that the violin family (violins, violas, cellos) should transpose, nor do viol players (pardessus, treble, alto, tenor, bass, contrabass) or trombonists (alto, tenor, bass). Similarly I do not imagine my fellow recorder players would assume our instrument in its various sizes would be transposing by nature (even if there are rare exceptions in history), nor the other families of so-called "historical" wind instruments. Perhaps the answer is not so much one of mentioning examples of instrumental families that do not transpose, as in making clear that instruments like the alto flute, oboe d'amore, or the cor anglais are exceptional in being related to a particular "type" instrument. (This also explains the former Italian practice of notating the cor anglais as a transposing instrument in the bass clef, since at that time it was regarded in Italy as a small bassoon, rather than a large oboe.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

So we say "Some families transpose, others don't." Problem solved! —Wahoofive (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Re: Belgium, I am from Belgium so obviously no offense to Belgium was intended. There's a whole bunch of people who think Belgium is a historical accident :-) But then there are people who think that of Austria too, though maybe not the same ones. The final form of the observation I had in mind can very well take the form that you give it namely that transposing instruments are so because they are related to a particular type-instrument (which would be a C instrument, cf. the flute, the oboe) and that when this is not so (as in the case of saxophones) it is a historical accident (for example the C instrument fell out of use or became rare). If you want to word things in this way then of course you do not need to mention trombones, tubas or recorders at all in an article about transposing instruments as there would be no nothing to explain, and that's fine. But note that both the French and the German WPs feel the need to say something about recorders, trombones and tubas in the corresponding articles, which they do not feel they have to say about the violin family or the viol family, and I think there might be a reason for that. Contact Basemetal here 21:16, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if the French and Germans might have picked up the contagion from this article! (As a Belgian yourself, you will be wary of the French and Germans!)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:40, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

@Wahoofive: I agree. There is no reason not to have a separate list of transposing instruments, just as with long lists attached to other types of articles. It keeps the clutter out of the way, while at the same time making it accessible to those who need or want to see it.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:54, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

"Full score" and "conductor's score" both redirect to a section on the [music] page. It could have its own page, I suppose (when did full scores become common? early 1600s?), but let's leave it until later. Once the lists are gone it will be easier to organize the remaining material. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:45, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Title

It's kind of weird that the article title is "instrument transposition" but the lede starts with "A transposing instrument...". It seems to me that the article used to be called "transposing instrument". I haven't dug through the history to see when that changed, but I think we should change it back. There's no discussion above about the title.

I agree, even though, thanks to a redirect, anyone looking for "Transposing instrument" lands here. I wonder why it was changed and who changed it. Contact Basemetal here 18:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

It was in Dec of 2012 by User:Skiasaurus. The rationale was that this topic is a convention of notation rather than a property of instruments. While this is true, I'd advocate Transposing Instrument as a more familiar name. —Wahoofive (talk) 19:54, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Well of course. All dictionaries have an article called "Transposing instrument". Does any one know of any where transposing instruments are dealt with in an article called "Instrument transposition"? While I understand the author of the name change thought that would help people grasp the concept better, the place for such explanations is in the body of the article. The title of an article should be in all cases the accepted familiar term by which the concept is known, even though it might be slightly illogical or misleading. The title of an encyclopedia article is not, in general, the place where you start a language reform. Contact Basemetal here 20:55, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that WP:COMMONNAME is indisputably applicable here. As far as the logic of the previous name change goes, I remember seeing it happen at the time and wondering, "Is that really true?" Players of saxophones, for instance, do not by any means all read music, but surely still think in terms of a particular fingering producing a particular note. Do they really imagine different notes for the same fingering on alto and tenor? And do they think of the actual sounding note, or of the nominal note of an instrument "in C"? If the latter is the case, then transposition is as much a matter of the thinking process as it is of notation, so it might be "more logical" to title the article "Brain transposition", though it would probably be prudent to add a qualifier, "Brain transposition (musical instruments)", in order to avoid confusion with organ transplants!—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians's article on the subject is entitled "Transposing instruments," so I'll defer to them and to the above arguments. Skiasaurus (skē’ ə sôr’ əs) 02:33, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your gracious consent, Skiasaurus. I've tagged Transposing instrument with {{db-move}} in preparation for reverting the page move. —Wahoofive (talk) 15:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Transposition at the octave (again!)

This is the 2nd section on whether it is appropriate to deal in this article with instruments transposing at the octave.

Ok so now a source was provided, so at least WP is not out on its own. There are also sources that do not include them among transposing instruments. Apparently however a majority of editors of this article decided they would go with the Harvard Dictionary of Music.

Now you've got to go through the article sentence by sentence and check whether the statements made do in fact apply also to instruments transposing at the octave, or if it is necessary to add qualifications to some of them. And you'd be well advised to do the same for the article Transposition (see below) since presumably the same people who support the inclusion of instruments transposing at the octave are also of the opinion that transposition at the octave is a bona fide transposition. (Watch out especially for any sentence that refers to pitch class!)

Apel's dictionary is a reputable source but, with all due respect, I think his inclusion is absurd. For example if a guitar part or a tenor voice part is written with an octave treble clef (a 2nd line G clef with a little 8 below it) then the guitar and the tenor voice are not transposing instruments but if they are written with the usual treble clef (without the 8) then, presto, they become transposing instruments. All the technical problems associated with transposing instruments, such as the way their parts are written in scores and the difficulties that may cause simply do not occur with instruments transposing at the octave. The dilution of the concept is not helpful to people coming to this article in order to obtain clear information. And the same goes for the article Transposition which starts with a definition: "The shifting of a melody, a harmonic progression or an entire musical piece to another key, while maintaining the same tone structure, i.e. the same succession of whole tones and semitones and remaining melodic intervals" which of course does not apply to transposition at the octave.

In my opinion, in good logic, an instrument transposing at the octave is just an instrument whose music is written with a permanent implicit 8va or 8va bassa and information about them should go into articles treating that notational device, in the form of an observation that for instruments where the 8va would be permanent one does not bother with it (or even, some of the time, but not always, with its alternative, namely the little 8 above or below the clef) because that property of the instrument is too generally known. As far as I'm concerned (I'd never checked the Harvard Dictionary of Music on this matter or if I did I completely forgot about it) I had never heard, before starting to edit WP, the piccolo flute, the guitar, the double-bass or the tenor voice called transposing instruments.

But since the majority opinion seems to be that instruments that transpose at the octave should be included here so be it.

Contact Basemetal here 19:31, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I think it's a bit premature to claim a consensus. And although I'm the one who provided the citation, I tend to agree with you that this use of the word "transposing" is pretty different from how it's used in other contexts. I was surprised to discover it in Apel also. I'd go along with portraying this as a disputed view.

As a conductor, though, I take issue with your contention that such octave transfers don't make score reading more difficult. I'll often glance at the string parts to see what the lowest note of the chord is, and if the double-bass part is notated higher than the cello part, but sounding lower due to the octave transfer, it takes a bit of extra brain power to process that, just like it does to determine whether the Bb clarinets are really in unison with the oboes. Obviously, whether the clef has a little 8 below it wouldn't affect that.

I'd welcome other views on this topic. —Wahoofive (talk) 19:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I understand that by "other views" you mean other people's view, but I forgot to mention one more reason why inclusion of instruments that transpose at the 8ve among transposing instruments makes language more awkward.

For instruments transposing to any interval other than the 8ve, their label is a pitch class, i.e. there are no several sorts of instruments in E-flat. An instrument in E-flat is a transposing instrument, period, whether it transposes at the min 3rd or at the min 10th.

Now suddenly that's different for instruments in C. There's two kinds of them. Some of them are non-transposing and other are supposedly transposing. So the phrases "instrument in C" (or in French "instrument en ut") and "non-transposing instrument" can no longer be used synonymously. You'd have to say "instrument in C and non-transposing" and "instrument in C but transposing", and this is so awkward that you might as well ditch the "in C" and just say "non-transposing" and "transposing at the 8ve". In other words the phrase "instrument in C" becomes pointless. So people who insist on including instruments transposing at the 8ve among transposing instruments would have succeeded in making a time honored and fairly common phrase completely useless.

Anyway, my last word on this, I promise.

Contact Basemetal here 22:07, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Natural scales of woodwind instruments

I see some problems in the "Mechanical and physical considerations" section. The oboe is an exception to the general claim that, on woodwinds, the major scale obtained by lifting the fingers sequentially is usually a C scale — the oboe's natural scale is in fact a D scale (or possibly a G scale), since "four fingers" on an oboe is F♯ (not F♮), C♮ is played with both index fingers (like B♭ on a flute) via a special mechanism, and "all fingers off" is not used. And the bassoon's natural scale is arguably G, not F, since "four fingers" on a bassoon is B♮ (not B♭) — though "all fingers off" on a bassoon is F♮, not F♯. I played bassoon for many years, and as a music education major, I became familiar with the other woodwinds — though there are numerous references available for my claims, including Woodwind Instruments and Their History by Anthony Baines. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:30, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Baines discusses the problem with the "six fingers" vs the "seven fingers" method for describing the "basic scale" of the flute. I do not recall him ever mentioning a "four fingers" method and, as far as I remember, this was solely to do with flutes, not reed instruments. Could you supply a few page references please?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

When I said "four fingers", I meant a fingering with three fingers (index, middle, and ring) on the left hand, and one finger (index) on the right hand. Sorry if my shorthand wording was confusing. Oboe fingering is described starting on page 107 of the Baines book (note that the mechanism most commonly seen in North America is the Conservatoire system). Bassoon fingering (for the German or Heckel system) is described on page 161. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 07:33, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the page citations. I will try to figure out what you are trying to say here. It seemed rather odd to me on first reading.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 07:36, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

To be even clearer, I was trying to describe a fingering in which three fingers on the left hand are "down" (covering their holes / pressing their keys), and the right index finger is also "down", but the right middle and ring fingers are "up" (not covering/pressing anything) — resulting in a total of four fingers covering holes or pressing keys. This finger configuration gives F♮ on the flute (together with the left thumb), saxophone, or the middle register of the clarinet; B♭ on the lower register of the clarinet; F♯ on the oboe; B♮ on the bassoon; and it's not used at all on recorders (either with or without the left thumb). — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 21:35, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see. (Of course, so-called "German system" recorders do use a four-finger F/B♭, but that is a side issue.) The problem then comes down to whether you regard the seven-finger note as the reference pitch, or if you allow it to move around. This is the issue that Baines discussed with respect to the flute, and I think the six-finger method is now all but universally discarded. In that case, it would be more accurate to say that the "natural scale" of the oboe is C-Lydian, the natural scale of the bassoon is F-Lydian, and so on. Otherwise, there is bound to be the very sort of confusion that Baines described for the flute (and, for that matter, not all flutes have four-finger F natural, as the Boehm flute does—the keyless and one-key flutes I play all have F♯ for that fingering, and this is true also for the so-called "simple-system" flutes of the 19th century). There is also the question of whether a "one finger at a time" method is the standard, or whether that "four-finger" note might be regarded as "normally" a forked fingering.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:47, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I'd suggest removing this whole section, or add clarification such as "in some cases the seven-finger note sounds the name of the transposition". But definitely remove the seven-note scale bit. (T)/123/4-- is diverse, and doesn't even exist on the more common English system recorder. There is really no solid connection between fingering and transpostion.

For each instrument, here is the "seven-note scale", followed by the fingering for the octave above the lowest note, followed by the left-thumb-only note ( — for "none"), followed by the "no-fingers" note ( — for "none"). All notes are in written pitch. The ᵀ symbol indicated that the left thumb is needed. Upper octaves or registers might add or omit extra keys, but usually keep the same seven-fingering and thumb pattern.

Instruments where the (T)/123/4567 sounds the same as the transposition.

Cᵀ/Dᵀ·Eᵀ·F♮ᵀ/Gᵀ·Aᵀ·Bᵀ | C' = -/1--/---- | — | C♯ | ⇒ Flutes, Piccolo

C /D· E· F♮ /G· A· B | C' = -/-2-/---- | — | C♯ | ⇒ Saxophones

C /D· E· F♯ /G· A· B | C' = -/1--/4--- | — | — | ⇒ Oboes, Cor Anglais

Cᵀ/Dᵀ·Eᵀ·F♮ᵀ/Gᵀ·Aᵀ·Bᵀ | C' = T/-2-/---- | C♯'| — | ⇒ Recorders in "C" or Recorders in "F" when transposed. The English system uses T/123/4-67 for the "four-finger" F, German system uses the simpler T/123/4---

Cᵀ/Dᵀ·Eᵀ·F♮ᵀ/Gᵀ·Aᵀ·Bᵀ | C' = T/-2-/---- | C | — | ⇒ Clarinets (Clarion register)

Instruments where the (T)/123/---- sounds the same as the transposition.

Fᵀ/Gᵀ·Aᵀ·B♭ᵀ/Cᵀ·Dᵀ·Eᵀ | F' = T/-2-/---- | F♯'| — | ⇒ Recorders in "F" when not transposed. The English system uses T/123/4-67 for the "four-finger" B♭, German system uses the simpler T/123/4---..

Fᵀ/Gᵀ·Aᵀ·B♮ᵀ/Cᵀ·Dᵀ·Eᵀ | F' = T/-2-/---- | F' | — | ⇒ Bassoons

F /G ·A ·B♭ /C ·D ·E | F' = T/---/---- | F' | G | ⇒ Clarinets (Chalumeau register)

Note especially that Clarinets would have two different transpositions if the seven-finger note sounds the transpostion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.174.157 (talk) 00:22, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposing a re-write of the lede

I don't want to just pop this in without input/feedback, but I'd like to re-write the lede to something like this:

---

A transposing instrument is a musical instrument whose written notes sound at a different pitch from concert pitch (concert pitch is the pitch on a non-transposing instrument such as the piano). For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing instrument produces a pitch other than middle C, and that sounding pitch identifies the interval of transposition when describing the instrument. Clarinet, soprano saxophone and trumpet are referred to as B♭ instruments — playing a written C on any of these produces a concert B♭. Providing transposed music for these instruments is a convention of musical notation. The instruments do not transpose the music, rather their music is written at a transposed pitch.

An instrument's transposition must be taken into account when that instrument is used in an ensemble. Even in improvisation, where specific notes are not written out, the chords and harmony are written in the appropriate tranpsosed form.

For some instruments, a written C sounds as a C, but is in a different octave; these instruments are said to transpose "at the octave". Pitches on the piccolo sound an octave higher than written while those on the double bass sound an octave lower.

---

Feel free to weigh in! Special-T (talk) 16:12, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

A definite improvement over the current version. The first sentence still needs work, though: the word "sound" is misleading, since the whole point is there isn't any sound at the written note's level. I'd also be cautious about using the word "pitch" as you have in the first sentence, since the the word "note" and "pitch" are conventionally considered to mean something written and something heard, respectively, so a written note doesn't inherently have pitch. Perhaps something like "A transposing instrument is a musical instrument whose music notation is transposed into a different key from the one in which it plays." This also allows you to push the definition of "concert pitch" lower in the paragraph, which I think would be desirable.

Excellent start, though. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I know - this is a notoriously difficult idea to present clearly, partly because (as you observed), "note", "pitch", "sound", "music" all have so many different meanings. Any sentence with those words can be mis-construed if the reader interprets them with an unintended meaning. I've edited it and gone ahead and put it in the article. There's A LOT more to do with this article! - Special-T (talk) 15:10, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Diatonic instruments

The section on diatonic instruments is less than ideal. Instrument transposition is a characteristic of notation - are these instruments (whistles, harmonicas) simply not considered transposing instruments because their music is rarely written (with the same notation standards as orchestra/band instruments)? To a harmonica player, do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do plays the same on any harmonica regardless of its key (like saxes, clarinets, etc.) but I suspect a notation standard has never developed because they don't use written music very often. - Special-T (talk) 12:34, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

Recent edit - repetitive wording emphasizes the similarity

Using the same wording to explain different instruments' transpositions makes it clearer because it emphasizes the sameness of the process. It's not literary or interesting, but it shouldn't be. I was going to revert it, but it's possible that I wrote that. - Special-T (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Someone check my edit?

I just changed the caption to a picture of a score. I'm pretty sure that I've assessed the transpositions accurately, but it would be great if someone more familiar with it could check. - Special-T (talk) 13:32, 5 June 2023 (UTC)