Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2010-11-02 17:57
This is an issue particularly with band music - to which the OP alluded - because, especially in music composed or arranged for less than college-level bands, the concert keys are often determined by what the result will be for the clarinets and trumpets (who frequently make up the majority of the instruments). It isn't so unusual in high school music, for example, to have the concert pitch instruments playing in D-flat major because in most of the "heterogeneous" band method books (designed to allow different instruments to be mixed together in the same class grouping) the flutes, trombones, etc. start out with the bottom five notes of B-flat major and move quickly to E-flat major and so learn B-flat, E-flat and A-flat before they ever see their natural versions. In fact, as any band director knows, it's like pulling teeth getting flutes and trombones to play B-natural or E-natural because they've learned the flat versions first. So 5 flats isn't so far removed from home for those players as it would be for clarinet and trumpet players who begin in written C and F Major or alto sax players who start in written G and C Major in those band methods. The composers end up writing in concert keys that are convenient for clarinets, trumpets, and tenor and alto saxes. It works out pretty well for French Horns as well, which makes life easier for pretty much everyone but the flutes, oboes and low brasses.
You get more variety in orchestral music where the strings outnumber everything else.
FWIW,
Karl
Post Edited (2010-11-03 17:06)
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
