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  • Transposing Question

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    I'm pretty new to studying printed scores, so this is definitely a newbie-question.

    I'm studying the score for Bruckner's 8th Symphony, but I'm somewhat confused about the transposing done to the brass instruments. Most of the staves show C-Minor, and some of the ones, like the B clarinets, have been transposed as one would expect them to be. However, the Horns in Bb and F, the Trumpets in C, and the Timpani don't have any sharps or flats on their staves, which is definetly not what happens when you do the logical transposing.

    I scanned the first first page of the piece, so if you look at the actual music might help clarify what it is I'm trying to explain.

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    @Alex Temple said:

    I'm pretty new to studying printed scores, so this is definitely a newbie-question.

    I'm studying the score for Bruckner's 8th Symphony, but I'm somewhat confused about the transposing done to the brass instruments. Most of the staves show C-Minor, and some of the ones, like the B clarinets, have been transposed as one would expect them to be. However, the Horns in Bb and F, the Trumpets in C, and the Timpani don't have any sharps or flats on their staves, which is definetly not what happens when you do the logical transposing.

    I scanned the first first page of the piece, so if you look at the actual music might help clarify what it is I'm trying to explain.


    In many traditional scores Brass and Timpani don't use key signatures, they use accidentals instead. This is because before valves were invented the only way to play notes other than the harmonic series was to change the length of the tubes in the brass instruments; longer for lower notes and shorter for higher notes (hence instuments in a key other than C). Therefore everything was written in C and so didn't need a key sig. This also goes for Timps, as the player would be "told" what notes to tune to (remember no pedals) so therefore key sigs were unnecessary. In some scores the Timps are also written in C.

    DG

  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on