Writing Key Signatures

[ColinThomson]

This is a simple question: Do you do it?

I have the score for 'Across the Stars' by John Williams, and there is no key signature, even though he obviously starts in D minor and moves freely between keys. So I want to know what people around here do, and why they do it. Thanks.

[dpcon]

Things modulate so freely and so often that notating these new tonal areas (via key signatures or accidentals) by relating them to a home key is more of a problem then solution: players having to read tons of accidentals, double sharps and flats etc. There may be a key center of sorts but not the kind of tonic/dominant relationship of say Beethoven's day where key signature and accidentals are telling you where you are in the composers structure. In that day the home key defined all that followed in a journey away from and back to. Today the home key is more of a point of departure where within a few measures the new key area is impossible to describe as being related to it in some traditional classical form.

On a simpler level: notation should make things easier to read not harder.

[JWL]

@dpcon said:

On a simpler level: notation should make things easier to read not harder.

True. Key signatures are omitted when an abundance of accidentals do more to confuse the eye than anything else.

Let's say a score had 5 flats and it modulated throughout or were polytonal or heavily modal. There could be passages in which four of those flats could be natural'd for an extended period and the remaining flat would probably require a courtesy accidental anyway. Works such as this might benefit more from having no key signature.

But many people prefer to work with a key signature just to define a tonal center rather than the modality. The danger is that if the work is constantly moving its tonal center, protocol would have it to add more key signature changes. It is not impossible to encounter a situation in which one finds himself adding a new keysignature at every barline.

The hybrid method for works with extended modulating episodes is to cancel the key signatue at the appropriate moment, then restore it as needed.

Much of this hinges on personal taste as well as the nature of the score's harmonic structure. I'm not one to adhere to textbook conventions when and where such protocols create visual disorder as well.

[Guy Bacos]

@ColinThomson said:

This is a simple question: Do you do it?

I have the score for 'Across the Stars' by John Williams, and there is no key signature, even though he obviously starts in D minor and moves freely between keys. So I want to know what people around here do, and why they do it. Thanks.

Are you talking about the conductor's score? If so, that could be normal for a conductor's score, something more american..... the individual parts may be in the correct keys though. Check that out.

[dpcon]

A score with no key signature is called a "C" Score meaning no sharps or flats in the signature but not in the Key of C neccessarily. It also means that transposed instruments like a trumpet in Bb or Hrn in F are not notated in the score as the individual players parts would be (the trumpet part would be written a whole step higher so C in the conductor's score would be written as a D in the trumpet part.)

In other words, to make a trumpeter play the real world (concert) C scale he should be given a key signature of D otherwise when he plays his C it which will actually sound as Bb. There is no Bb in the Key of C so it's better to tell him once with a key signature not to sound that Bb everytime he reads a C (and not to sound Eb everytime he reads an F) hence the key signature of D which has two sharps cancels out the two flats that he would play if there were no accidentals in his part.

This adjustment must be made in the written parts for all transposing instruments that are not pitched in the key of C . The C score came into vogue in the 20th century as key centers were often abandoned.

[JWL]

Hey Dave-- I've encoutered scores with no key signatures but were actual "concert scores" as you described as well as scores with no key signatures where the instruments were indeed notated with transposed pitches (ie: B-flat instruments were noted up a whole step).

[DG]

@JWL said:

Hey Dave-- I've encoutered scores with no key signatures but were actual "concert scores" as you described as well as scores with no key signatures where the instruments were indeed notated with transposed pitches (ie: B-flat instruments were noted up a whole step).

Yes, it can be very confusing, particularly when dealing with a non-tonal score.

DG

[mathis]

@dpcon said:

In other words, to make a trumpeter play the real world (concert) C scale he should be given a key signature of D

It's not necessary to give him a key signature in D, he just needs the correctly transposed pitches. With key signatures it can be very awkward. I once have given an alto sax player his transposed score with Key signature in A and the whole score was full of naturals and double flats, hardly readable. Very idiotic but I just didn't know yet that there is the "atonal C" key in Sibelius which doesn't give the transposed parts a key signature.

[JWL]

@mathis said:

With key signatures it can be very awkward. I once have given an alto sax player his transposed score with Key signature in A and the whole score was full of naturals and double flats, hardly readable. Very idiotic but I just didn't know yet that there is the "atonal C" key in Sibelius which doesn't give the transposed parts a key signature.

Yes, this was what I was referring to when using a key signature would result in lots of accidentals where no key signature might render fewer note alterations.

If the score is atonal, the key signature becomes even less meaningful.

[ColinThomson]

Thanks for all the replies. Yes, the score that I have is the conductor's score, and I do not have individual parts, so I don't know if they are written with signatures, or not. Also, this is not all written in concert pitch, as the parts for the Bb trumpet are all written a whole step higher, F horn is a perfect fifth higher, etc. I am currently writing a piece that I plan to use VSL to mock-up when I am done, but I am writing it all out by hand on manuscript paper, all with no sharps of flats in the key signature, just writing the parts transposed for what instrument is playing them. This is not because I am planning on having a real orchestra play it (although I would dearly love that), but because I want to practice. So now I am practically transposing in my sleep. So, anyway, I just wanted to see what people here do, and why they do it.

[dpcon]

I know JWL and co., halfway in to my post I realized that there were too many permutations to go into so I tried to give a general feeling for things. Also the Bb trumpet examples is bad and flat out wrong. I was trying to make a point about transposed instruments having their accidentals canceled in the signature but that's a very example.
Suffice to say, notation is dependant upon what is the easiest for the player to read as well as what is idomatic to the instrument (so there you have the issue of no key signature for a Bb instrument though he may be in C as JWL pointed out.) In a traditional classical/romantic score (for the most part) people are usually given key signatures that adjust them into the key. So an instrument that already has two naturally occuring flats will be given a single flat to get him into Eb and a non-transposing instrument like a flute or violin will be given the three flats in the key signature or Eb. A well known exception to this is the Fr Horn in F which is normally without a key signature (though I just found a score with signatures for the horns...of course.)

Okay somebody else try to explain all this.... [:D]