EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 70, Issue 01 This issue's topics: Transposition for other instruments Saxual Disfunction (4 messages) Sax thanks Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . Please send articles to emusic-l@american.edu. Administrative mail should be directed to the editor at the address above. You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 16:17:57 -0500 From: "Mark D. Hanson" Subject: Saxual Disfunction (sorry about that...) HELP!! I thought this would be relatively easy, but I keep messing it up...please help if you can... Am trying to arrange a sax part to a chart that is written in Cm (concert). Ususlly I sequence the part into an Ensoniq EPS 16+ and then dump it into Cakewalk pro for windows, transpose to the proper sax key and voila' Ok, I understand that to get her to play my C-concert note, I have to chart an Eb...hence, a piece written in C would be the key of Eb for her and as such, Cm would be Ebm for her. The problem is CW/Pro does not do minor keys and as a result the 3-flats encountered in Cm could also be thought of as Eb (concert). Does that not make an Eb minor (concert) key signature=F#m for sax?? So, I go ahead and dump the part, raise it up three 1/2 steps to equal her Ebm setting. The question is...what is the key signature for the sax? Sorry if this veeres from the spirit of the group, but I am desparate. You can E-mail direct if necessary Thanks in advance for your help Mark D. Hanson HansonMD@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 16:11:20 CST From: Bob Crispen Subject: Re: Saxual Disfunction "Mark D. Hanson" sez: >Am trying to arrange a sax part to a chart that is written in Cm (concert). I presume from what follows is that it's an Eb alto sax. >hence, a piece written in C would be the key of Eb for her and as >such, Cm would be Ebm for her. The problem is CW/Pro does not do minor keys >and as a result the 3-flats encountered in Cm could also be thought of as Eb >(concert). Does that not make an Eb minor (concert) key signature=F#m for >sax?? You've got it just backwards. A concert Eb is written as a C for an alto (or baritone) sax player. Your C-minor piece would then be in A-minor for the sax, which is the relative minor of C, or no sharps or flats. If you're scoring it by hand (remember that?) just pretend the treble cleff you're writing on is really a bass cleff, but an octave higher for the alto, same pitch for the bari. If you're writing for a tenor sax, then your C-minor piece would be written in D-minor, or one flat (relative major = F). +-------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen | Music should not be held responsible | | crispen@foxy.hv.boeing.com | for the people who listen to it. | +-------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 19:14:04 -0500 From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: Saxual Disfunction Bob's beaten me on replying to this one, but he didn't waste time typing in a circle of fifths, either... :) I'll delete the part of my exposition that would have duplicated his, including that great bari sax trick... You can also use the circle of fifths to work out the transpositions. Move toward the sharps on the circle by the number of places necessary to counteract the number of flats built into the instrument (or vice versa for an instrument whose builtin key contains sharps). So for a quick check on the E-flat also sax, we go to E-flat on the circle, move three places toward the sharps and away from the flats (this adds 3 sharps, counteracting the instrument's 3 flats) and get C. You can make a minor circle as easily as a major one (see below). Here, moving from E-flat minor(6 flats) three places toward the sharps gets C minor (3 flats). As another example, let's take a trumpet in D. Its "builtin" key is two sharps, so we'd move two steps away from sharps and toward flats to transpose for it. A scored A-flat, for example, should be written in the part as Gb. Circle of fifths (major keys): C (0#/0b) F (0#/1b) G (1#/0b) Bb (0#/2b) D (2#/0b) Eb (0#/3b) A (3#/0b) Ab (0#/4b) E (4#/0b) Db (0#/5b) B (5#/0b) C# (7#/0b) Cb (0#/7b) F#(6#/0b) Gb(0#/6B) Circle of fifths (minor keys): a (0#/0b) d (0#/1b) e (1#/0b) g (0#/2b) b (2#/0b) c (0#/3b) f# (3#/0b) f (0#/4b) c# (4#/0b) bb (0#/5b) g# (5#/0b) a# (7#/0b) ab (0#/7b) d#(6#/0b) eb(0#/6B) And whoever designed a D-flat piccolo... argh! --- Joe M. -- "Don't be absurd. We're scaring the locals with music for fun, not profit." (Lord Cthulhu, in Savage Henry #1) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 10:48:38 -0500 From: "Ray E. Church" Subject: Re: Saxual Disfunction To Mark Hanson-- I believe you have the transposition for Eb Alto saxophone reversed. To get a concert Eb (Eb on a piano), an Eb Alto saxophone should be fingered as a C. When the saxophone player reads an Eb on sheet music, it will sound on a piano as a concert Gb. When an Eb alto saxophone players reads an A on his/her sheet music, the sound of the tone is the C on the piano. The transposition for major or minor keys should still work because the change in the Cakewalk merely shows the sharps or flats. The "minor" sound comes from which tone is the key center, for example, F comes from which tone is the key center, for example, C major and A minor both have no sharps and flats. Ray Church church@odie.ncssm.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Nov 1994 16:55:14 -0500 From: "Mark D. Hanson" Subject: Sax thanks Thanks so much to Craig, Bob, Peter, Gil and Ray and any else I might have missed. I think I understand in "theory" (sorry) will see how I do in practice, practice, practice... indebted....mark Mark D. Hanson HansonMD@aol.com ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************