by PeterA » 27 May 2021 12:44
It is interesting that you mention that playing the notes written on the stave, all the instruments would sound the same.
I think what you mean is that all the instruments would sound the same pitch. They would not sound the same, because even with our limited hearing capabilities, most of us can distinguish between a piano, a flute or a violin, playing the same note.
May I add a little more about transposing instruments, which adds further to this subject relating to sound and pitch, please?
On the Yamaha AR-Group, when dealing with playing instruments on your keyboard authentically, I posted the following, which I think is appropriate to this post from Den.
So, why are there so many different clarinets?
The reason could well take up a whole topic of its own, but you need to understand that the clarinet is one of many musical instruments which are called Transposing Instruments.
That means they read an individual note, finger that particular note, but the sound that comes out is not that note, because it is another note entirely.
In other words they are not notated at their true pitch, but mechanically and without any extra effort on behalf of the player produce the different pitch.
For instance, let us take the Bb Clarinet. For the player with this instrument, Bb is the ‘natural key’. This is somewhat like keyboard players enjoying playing in the key of C.
But the Bb Clarinet player, will read a Bb note on the score, finger a Bb note on their clarinet, but the sound produced will actually be an Ab. i.e. one tone lower.
If they read a C note and finger that C note, then the sound emanating is actually a Bb note.
Why is this?
The answer is to make the playing of the instrument a little easier, because it reduces the number of sharps and flats that the Clarinetist has to deal with.
e.g. If the music score is written in Eb, which has 3 flats, the clarinetist will actually be playing in the key of F, which only has one flat.
But obviously, I hear you say, they can still come across a ‘horrible’ key, so what happens then. The answer is to simply swop instruments. They may pick up a Clarinet in A. However, when they do so, the music score has to be transposed for them to read it more easily.
The A Clarinet sounds 3 semi-tones lower than it reads. Therefore, when it reads the note C it actually sounds the note A.
Thus if the sound needed to be in the key of B, which has five sharps, the clarinetist would play with the A Clarinet, in the key of D, which only has 2 sharps.
In practice, nowadays clarinetists are so accomplished that they play in every key, including those horrible ones, with no trouble at all. This means that the original reason for transposing has virtually been eliminated, but now you know why they were designed that way, and why the tradition continues.
The important reason to know all this, is that if you are accompanying a Clarinet with your keyboard, you will not be able to play from the same piece of music, unless you adjust your keyboard to sound the same note as they are playing!
With a Bb Clarinet, we now know that your keyboard will sound one tone higher than the clarinet.
Imagine a couple of youngsters playing a duet, with one on the clarinet and the other on the flute, and both reading from the same sheet of music. The discordant noise, because they are playing one tone apart, would be horrendous and you could guarantee that each of them would blame the other, for playing the wrong notes! Reminds me of Eric Morecambe, on the piano, and with Andrew Previn conducting the orchestra. In actual fact our two youngsters would both be playing exactly the right notes! even though it sounds awful.
With a piano or organ you would have to have suitably transposed music. This explains why you can buy music books written for instruments in Bb. It does not mean that all the scores are written in Bb. It means that all the music is written twice, once for the instrumentalist and also for the accompaniment, but one tone lower.
With most modern keyboards, we can get round this problem and simply set out Transpose button to -2, and away we go.
Peter
Organ: Yamaha AR80