Re: Notation of french horn

[Josiah Boothby]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 01:07, Jonas Olson <address@hidden> wrote:
> On the valveless horn you change crooks to give the instrument a
> transposition that matches the music. That way, the music is always
> notated in C major (assuming major mode), just like how music sounding
> in B♭ major, played on a B♭ clarinet, is written as C major. Rather than
> calling this "no key signature", I'd say we have the key signature of C
> major.

Close, but not exactly. Horns and trumpets were generally given no key
signatures even in movements that were in keys other than that for
their crooks. This convention is more related to a harpist's
preference to see notes flatted or sharped based on what strings they
would be using, since it makes it easier to see what our hand has to
do when we have to make an alteration.

> When we switch over to valves, we no longer match the transposition of
> the instrument to the key of the music, so it's only natural for other
> key signatures to appear. To continue the tradition of valveless horns,
> one would rather have to consider every valve press to be a change of
> crooks that alters the transposition of the instrument, and then write
> for this transposition until it's time for the next valve press.

That would be hilarious. I would pay you twenty-five cents to arrange
the horn parts to, say, Tristan und Isolde so that each new fingering
is notated as a crook change. I'd pay fifty cents if it was actually
legible.

> In summary, having no key signature (rather, the key signature of C
> major) appears natural to me when dealing with valveless horns (whose
> transposition match the key of the music) but not when it comes to horns
> with valves. I'm looking forward to getting this explained to me!

As Tiresia explained, the tradition has more to do with horn players
being accustomed to one way rather than another. Perhaps this is like
bass clef,[1] and eventually horn players will generally prefer to see
key signatures to bring them fully into the modern world. But in the
meantime, you can always spot an orchestral horn player griping about
having to deal with key signatures.

—Josiah

[1] "old notation" bass clef is another vestige of the natural horn
that had us reading bass clef notes an octave lower than the treble
clef transposition (middle C would be in the second space of the bass
clef). If only we'd move to using C clefs and no transposition!