Learning how to play transposed parts

If you play professionally, or even if you play in an amateur way in a community orchestra,you are going to come across horn parts in keys other than F. When you do so, you have essentially two choices. Either you write every such part out for horn in F, or you learn to transpose at sight.


But it might be that sight reading even in F is a bit forbidding - it is for quite a lot of people. So to be able to read parts in other keys may require that you improve and combine two separate skills - transposition and sight reading.

Sight reading frightens a lot of people - many think that it is a black art only mastered by professionals and not to be vouchsafed to mere mortals in the amateur world. Certainly professionals have to have a high degree of mastery of it, but decent sightreading skills are not beyond amateur players. I have described before how to go about learning sightreading.

Now, for transposition. Writing out transposed parts in F is a good idea in terms of understanding how transposition works. Different people have different ways of thinking about it, but I favour the simple interval method.

Consider for example horn in D. D is down a minor third from F. Most transposing parts are written without key signature, effectively in C major. So down a minor third from C is A. You're now in A major instead of C major. In the part written out in F, write in the A major key signature (three sharps), and then write out all the notes a third down. All the sharps and flats will organise themselves automatically as a result of the new key signature, except for where there are accidentals in the original part, which you have to deal with by hand.

For accidentals you look at the newly-written transposed note before the accidental is applied. If it is a natural, all is simple, just write in the same accidental as in the original. If it is a sharp or flat as a result of the key signature, then what you need to do is change the note by a semitone in the same direction as in the original part. So for instance, if you have an Ab in the original part, moving down a third changes it to F-something. Because of the key signature, A natural goes to F#. Ab is a semitone lower than A natural, so the transposed note must also be lowered a semitone, from F# to F natural. So you write a natural in front of the F.

If you do all that right, you now have a part correctly written out in F. The same principle applies to all the other different keys. The only thing different is the interval and therefore the key signature. These are the most common transpositions.

A - up a third, add 4 sharps to the key signature (to E major)
G - up a second, add 2 sharps to the key signature (to D major)
Eb - down a second, add 2 flats to the key signature (to Bb major)
D - down a third, add three sharps (to A major)
C - down a fourth, add one sharp (to G major)
Bb basso - down a fifth, add one flat (to F major)
Bb alto - up a fourth, add one flat (to F major)

I've left out of that list transposition from horn in E. There are two possible ways of thinking about E transposition. One is to just flatten every written note, the other is to go down a second and add five sharps to the key signature. Both methods work perfectly well, and have the effect of lowering pitch by a semitone.

Of course, notation software such as Sibelius or Finale can do all this automatically, with you typing in the part as written, and then having the software perform the transposition for you. But if you are ever going to transpose at sight, you need to work out how to do it for yourself by hand with pencil and paper.

Now, if you're going to progress from transposing on paper to transposing at sight, three things are necessary. One is that you have got your sight-reading good enough that you don't panic about it. Second, you have to be familiar with your scales and arpeggios and key signatures, and third, you need to have understood thoroughly how to do the transposition on paper.

Then what you do is practice slowly sightreading orchestral parts that have been written for horn pitched in various keys. You'll notice that, particularly for 2nd & 4th horn parts, often almost all the notes are in the C major arpeggio. So if you know your A major arpeggio, transposition at sight from D becomes much easier - you just play the equivalent notes of the A major arpeggio. Give or take an octave, that is only 3 notes that you need to learn!

As the parts go higher, you get more notes of the harmonic series, but again you will relatively rarely see written notes that aren't part of the C major scale. So if you know your A major scale, you're still in good shape. Again, the same principle applies to the other keys. So, transposing at sight is much easier if you know the relevant scales and arpeggios.

As for where to go to get horn parts to practice transposition, I can recommend the IMSLP website. Perhaps start with some of the Mozart symphonies. IMSLP has horn parts available online for some of them, I'd recommend you start with the most famous ones, symphonies 38-41. Then try the Beethoven symphonies.

The art of sight reading

Sight-reading is a skill that can be mastered at any age. I've taught it to people of all ages who previously thought that is was a black art only to be mastered by extremely fine musicians and not to be understood by mere mortals.

The key to successful sight reading is learning not to panic. If you start to panic over the notes, so much of your brain is taken up with the panic that there is nothing left for actually doing the reading and playing. Therefore sight reading exercises and techniques should be directed towards avoiding and eliminating panic.

The techniques are fairly simple.

1. For the early stages of sight-reading practice, choose exercises substantially easier than the ones you are using to develop technique & endurance.
2. When doing a sight reading exercise, choose a speed slow enough that you can be confident that you won't panic over the most difficult part. That means that the easier parts go more slowly than the fastest you can manage.
3. Before you start, check out time signatures, key signatures, and have a special look at any awkward notes, intervals or rhythms. The idea is to avoid being surprised by difficult bits when they arrive.
4. Count a bar's rest before you start to set the speed, and keep counting so you can stick to that speed throughout the exercise. On no account speed up in the easy bits, it will simply mean you either panic (and stop) at the difficult bits, or you slow down. In an orchestra or ensemble, you won't be given the option to slow down!
5. Look a bar or so ahead of the note that you are playing. You don't need to look at the note you are playing now - it is already either right or wrong, and if it is wrong there is nothing more you can do for it. You need to be looking at notes you will be playing soon, so that when they finally arrive, you aren't surprised by them. Remembering to do this is the hardest part of sight-reading (until you get the trick of it, when it is natural!). It may help if you can get a friend to hold a pencil pointed to the bar ahead of where you are playing, in order to draw your eyes forward. If you do this, take extra special care to keep counting at a steady speed, so you don't try to catch up with where the pencil is.
6. If despite these techniques, you get an attack of panic when doing a sight-reading exercise, repeat the exercise at least 30% slower. The whole idea is to practice not panicking, and to get used to the idea that sight-reading without panic is achievable. If you still break down 30% slower, go 30% slower still and keep getting slower until you find a speed at which you don't panic.

Once you find a speed at which you are able regularly to sight-read successfully, keep practising at that speed to get used to the thought-patterns involved, and to gain confidence that you really can do it! Then, gradually, notch the speed up a bit - 5% or 10% at a time, and see if you can still manage it.

Sight-reading in an orchestra or ensemble is a different matter. Different techniques are required simply because you don't get to choose the speed at which the piece is rehearsed. The same general anti-panic principle applies, but now, instead of dropping the speed to get the notes, you drop notes in order to maintain the speed.

The key thing is that you must not fall behind and you must not get lost. If that means in the early rehearsals before you have had a chance to practice the part, all you manage to do is count the bars and play the first note of each bar of difficult passages, then so be it. Better that than getting lost and causing the conductor to stop the rehearsal and tell you where he has got to.

Once you have mastered the basic techniques in the easy exercises, then you use the same technique reading through every piece of music you can lay your hands on, in order to keep and extend the skill.