Instruments 102: Woodwinds 

Why then a transposing instrument player doesn't learn the note they are playing as the actual concert note name instead of the transposed note ?

Do A and Bb clarinets therefore finger the notes the same for the concert notes a semitone apart?

But it’s also to keep more notes on the main staff, fewer ledger lines. I prefer the medieval solution to that - transpose the staff rather than the instrument. Unfortunately, I was not around to ask when the decision was made.

@@velvetsound No actually. When a clarinet player sits down to a piece of music, they don’t really care too much if the clarinet they are playing is B flat, or A, or E flat (unless the conductor asks the entire group to play something in concert pitch, then they’d have to transpose what pitch to play depending on the key of the instrument they are currently playing). If the piece of music they are reading has middle C written it doesn’t matter if their horn is pitched in B flat or E flat or A or F or whatever pitch, they play a middle the instrument’s middle C fingering because the composer has already transposed that note to correct for the pitch of the horn. If the conductor asks that all the clarinet players to play a concert B flat (say there is intonation issues between the players) the B flat instruments will transpose that note and play their C pitch, and an A clarinet player would transpose that note and play their C sharp pitch and it would sound like they were all playing the same pitch but these notes would have different fingering between the B flat and A players. The advantage to this is that no matter the pitch coming out of their horn (which again is dependent upon what key the instrument is pitched as) they know that the G written as the second line of the treble staff is all fingers up (no keys pressed and no fingers covering holes) regardless of the actual pitch of the horn and this again is true all they way up and down the horn. If the instruments were not pitched they would have to keep the fingering for different horns straight. They would have to know that G on a B flat horn is an D on a E flat horn and a G sharp on an A horn, which you can see gets confusing quickly. Now consider that in Jazz ensembles the lead E flat alto player is expected to double on B flat soprano for some songs and even sometimes switch between the two in the same song, occasionally switching back and forth several times in the same song as called for by the composer or arranger. TL;DR transposing instruments are transposing so that a player can (in theory) effortlessly switch between different members of the same instrument family. If you know how to read sheet music for an E flat alto saxophone, you know how to read music for a B flat saxophone because all you have to do is push down the same buttons no matter which instrument you are playing because the composer has already done the hard part of transposing the music from concert pitch to the pitch of the horn you are playing. Hope this makes sense. I was/am a woodwind player and it took me a long time to figure out why they made transposing instruments. (The main reason they make an A clarinet is to make certain passages of music easier for players to play and read. Say that something is written with an ugly key signature (Say concert B natural major, that transposes to C sharp major for B flat clarinets and thats 7 sharps in the key signature to have to remember while playing the piece. I consider that pretty ugly, on an A clarinet that would transpose to the key of D major, with a much easier 2 sharp key signature to have to remember, which causes me much less stress when I sit down to read something for the first time but I am also an amateur player. More skilled players usually have all of the scales and arpeggios well under their fingers and can play proficiently in any key, but still it’s much easier to just have to keep track of two sharps in your head than it is 7.)

What if you have a plastic reed? 🤔😉😁🤷‍♂️

Once she reached transposing instruments this video switched into a new gear. I was laughing out loud, earned my sub in 30 seconds.

I'm sayin bruh 😂

IKR. Somehow I also love it when she cusses, because she does it like a sailor but with the voice of a proper lady. I guess that's also some kind of transposing :)

Glad you like them!

And yeah.......bloody French 😂😂

On est des gens bien !!

We love you all, because at the end of the day - what would the world be like wizout ze French!?

@@craigwilliamdayton Very true, good nitpick on my nitpick. In the context of film scoring there's not too much of that, although I literally recorded some jazz clarinet with vibrato a couple months ago for an upcoming film, so maybe take that for what it's worth 😂

Y’all are nitpicky nitpickers and I love it 😂❤️ More detailed information is always better.

My pleasure, and thank you for the support!

Wish she were my music teacher. I think I could go 8-10 hours listening to her. Great info and very funny video.

I love it because I never learned to play any kind of orchestral instrument, but I actually have the gall to compose orchestral music and it is supremely helpful to know what the different instruments ( or groups) are good at and what their limitations are.

Try doubling the flute with a more percussive instrument like glockenspiel or xylophone - gives it more punch and worked really well for the Beach Boys back in the days (listen to "Sloop John B"). 😉

@@Fastvoice Thanks I'll have to give that a listen, but I already think I'm going to like that sound. Jordan Rudess, the keyboardist of Dream Theater, has a synth sound that seems to combine a flute with marimba or something similar. Wasn't a fan at first but I now appreciate how well it plays with a distorted guitar. Instruments can have such a different perceived sound based on what they're playing along with, sometimes completely getting lost. When I first learned of doubling it completely changed how I approached composition (I must have thought it was taboo or something lol).

Thank you so much for the support! ☺

@@AnneKathrinDernComposer You’re very welcome!

Transposing Instruments: One can think about it like a "finger-set" (like a chord on a guitar with a capo - you play the cord C but with the capo at the third fret its a D# but if you want to hear a D# you would write C with "capo on 3" - wich could make some songs much easier to play (and even sound better on (a guitar))) :0. For the musicians playing a transposing instrument the note in the score corresponds merely to a "finger-set" and not to a pitch - that makes it easier for them to play "different versions" of the same instrument - but of course it makes it harder to read for everybody else ;)

@@simpliciussimpli-cissimus6034 As a guitarist and a saxophonist I still prefer the swearing.