Fwd: Music Glossary - 1.64 Concert Pitch

[Wols Lists]

 quote:

The trombones are a special case: although they are said to be ‘in F’ (alto or bass) or ‘in B-flat’ (tenor), this refers to their fundamental note, not to their parts’ transposition. (In fact, the trombones’ parts are written at concert pitch with an appropriate clef – alto, tenor or bass.) This differs from other instruments ‘in F’, ‘in B-flat’, and so on, which are transposing instruments.

End quote:

PLEASE can we fix this ... maybe it's my fault for not chasing up when I moaned about it before, but I thought it was being fixed.

Firstly, NEITHER the alto nor the bass trombones are 'in F' - my tenor trombone is (sort of) in F - being a Bb/F instrument, and all trombones 'in F' are actually Bb/F tenors.

The alto trombone is an Eb instrument, and the (true) bass trombone is a G instrument. The modern bass trombone is actually a wide-bore/flared-bell tenor in Bf/F/G.

And secondly, the tenor trombone is even more of a special case than stated, because it IS a transposing instrument. When in a brass band, the tenor trombone is a transposing instrument like every other instrument (EXCEPT the bass trombone - to be difficult! :-). In an orchestra it is not a transposing instrument. And in a concert band the music may or may not be transposed to suit the player.

This is actually related to the definition of "1.311 transposing instrument" where the description "The pitch class is the note that sounds (disregarding the octave in which it sounds) when the instrument plays a notated C." is unfortunately a bit arse-about-face. It should say "The pitch class is the note that sounds (regardless of octave) when the pitch is not altered by using keys, valves etc to alter the effective length (and therefore pitch) of the instrument. This note is then notated as C in transposed music." It's the pitch class that determines which note is written as C, not the other way round (and it also correctly defines the trombone that way).

Okay. Let's try and rewrite both of them:

Transposing instruments:

Instruments whose notated pitch is different from their sounded pitch. They usually come in families which differ only in their fundamental pitch (the base note determined by the length of the instrument from mouthpiece to bell). Except for those whose notated and sounding pitches differ by one or more octaves (to reduce the number of ledger lines needed), most such instruments are identified by the letter name of the pitch class of their fundamental. This is the note which is written as C when music is transposed.

Trombones are a special case as the bass trombone is never transposed, but the tenor trombone is never transposed in an orchestra, always transposed in a brass band, and may be transposed in a concert band.

Concert pitch:

If you want to list a non-transposing brass instrument the ONLY safe one to list (that I know of) is the bass trombone. You could add "tenor trombone playing in an orchestra" but that's an awful mouthful. And please drop the rest of the stuff about trombones!

(Now I've got a decent gentoo system, maybe I ought to create a git repository and learn how to do patches, but I was trying not to tread on the maintainer's toes :-)

Cheers,
Wol