The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: huda
Date: 2011-12-30 04:05
i play Bb clarinet. my insructor gave me a piano piece to transpose. he said we would be playing in a-minor. the piece itself is in f-major. im lost. let me repeat the facts:
*Bb clarinet
*piece is in f-major
*we are playing in a-minor
so i need to be in the same key as him on keyboard. will he transpose from c to f? what should i do and why? do i care about chords, or do they not make a difference in clarinet? how do i do all this stuff with keys and scales?
for example, what would cgaabcd turn into?
thank you, m.y.k.
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Author: Trevor M
Date: 2011-12-30 04:29
Bb clarinet players should ideally be able to transpose two ways:
1) down a half step, to play music written for A clarinet. This is pretty basic, but usually clumsy to play (a C major scale becomes a B major scale).
2) up a whole step, to play music written in 'concert key', i.e. in C. A written C major scale would be played as a D major scale (i.e. up a ledger line and 'add two sharps). This is actually pretty easy to do.
Being able to transpose from concert key will open up a big body of music to you and make it easier to play in ad-hoc ensembles. You can read oboe parts when they can't hire oboes, you can play from lead sheets, etc.
I don't know what your reacher is talking about though. If it's in F major, you should be playing it in G, i.e. reading it up a ledger line and adding two sharps (in this case, one of those sharps is deleting the one flat of F major). cgaabcd would be played dabbc#de. You should probably ask him about that. Hope this helps!
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-12-30 05:20
Perhaps the teacher made a mistake or you missed what he/she was saying.
A major key is always major and a minor key also remains minor, none of them switch from major to minor, or minor to major, when transposing. Hope this helps.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
Post Edited (2011-12-30 05:34)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2011-12-30 14:34
Maybe the key signature has one flat and therefore instead of thinking F-major, it's really D minor. So don't think of it as "F major", think of it as "D Minor".
If it's D-minor, and you transpose it, you'd be adding 2 sharps making the key signature looking like G major, but will actually be E-minor.
And "E" can sound a lot like "A" if said quickly, or with a slight accent, or (maybe THIS is what happend) was simply misheard...
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2011-12-30 17:07
Bb clarinet transposition from a C part is always one whole step up no matter what the key. If you are playing from a C part that has one flat, f major or d minor, you will be playing in one sharp, g major or e minor. There is no other way, it's going to be one step higher on every note. ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2011-12-30 17:41
I think I'm in aggreeance with Alexi here, but here's what I would do:
F major (1 flat) is also D-minor (concert key)
You will be playing in A-minor (concert key), so transpose the whole thing down a perfect 4th or up a perfect 5th depending on the rest of the arrangement
Transpose that up a second to B-minor [2 sharps] (clarinet key)
c g a a b c d (piano key F major/d minor) becomes a e f# f# g# a b (clarinet key b minor)
(A side note, are you sure the passage cgaabcd isn't cgaa(bflat)cd), because b natural isn't in the key center. In which case, the clarinet transposed passage is aef#f#(g natural)ab
In reference to chords:
If you are playing written notes, you won't have to worry about chords. If you are improvising, then you must transpose the chords.
To transpose chords, transpose the chord root the same as you would any note in the song. Keep the chord symbol the same.
Common Chords in F major: Fmaj7, Gmin7, Bbmaj7, C7, Dmin7
Become
Transposed (Clarinet Key D major/b minor): Dmaj7, Emin7, Gmaj7, A7, Bmin7
Common Chords in d minor: Dmin7, Edim7b5, Gmin7, A7aug, C7
Become
Transposed (Clarinet Key D major/b minor): Bmin7, C#dim7b5, Emin7, F#7aug, A7
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2011-12-31 00:39
Or, you could just take up the oboe, and be done with all that transposition.
Susan
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