Bad news for you my friend: the only REAL way to solve the problem is revoice the piano accompaniment so it works in a musical way with the new key. Just a strict transposition doesn't really work, because, as you said, you get into the ledger lines, and sonically, it just gets too dark. Sometimes making choices to move the newly transposed music to a higher octave can work, but usually only in particular sections, etc. Just re-write a more musical accompaniment. (A real pain in the neck if you're just providing someone with an audition piece or a one-time performance, because they won't want to pay for your hours of re-writing the accompaniment.) If you decide to use the ledger lines (without revoicing), cross staff where needed is probably the best route. (or changing the clef on the problem staff temporarily) By the way, sheet music publishers tend to write a piano accompaniment that includes the melody, primarily because they expect that the singer is not neccessarily a pro and they will need all the help they can get to deliver the melody (I'm guessing this is a hold over from the Tin Pan Alley days). If you listen to almost any pro sing a song (even if it's only solo piano accompaniment) you will not hear the melody played note for note throughout the accompaniment; it might reference it from time to time, but the singer is carrying the ball (melody), and the accompanist is, well, accompanying/supporting, (not doubling the singer).
> This isn't a specific question so much as my general interest in > others' experience with the same phenomenon. > > I work with singers a lot, and from time to time I'm asked to type up > a transposed copy of a song that the singer wants to sing in a > different key, for an audition, recital or whatever. In theory, my > task is to just copy the original exactly as is, then let Finale > magically change it to another key and we're good to go. But > sometimes it's not that simple. > > Very often, the song is one from the early musical theater era -- > say, Rodgers & Hammerstein or thereabouts -- and the singer is a > belty mezzo. The style in those days was to write women singers > higher than most women are used to singing today, and even the lower > songs are generally in the middle soprano range. Since the belty > mezzo is happiest from about G to G on either side of middle C, she > typically wants the song transposed down a third or even a fourth. > This feels perfectly natural to her, since that's where most female > pop and jazz singers sing nowadays, and it's very likely where she's > heard that very song recorded by some pop star. > > So far, so good. I'm not a purist, and I have no problem with > transposing to whatever key the singer likes. I am, however, a > pragmatist, and what troubles me is what happens to the piano > accompanist. A typical accompaniment style for a song of this era is > for the right-hand to double the melody with chords harmonizing > downward from that. That means that even in the original key the > right hand was going into the ledger lines below middle C. After the > song is transposed so that the melody frequently dips below middle C, > those chords become practically unreadable. > > What do you do about that? If I see myself as merely a scribe, I can > just let it plummet down into the ledger lines and tell the singer, > "Hey, that's what you asked for; it's not my fault you're transposing > too low." But of course I'm more involved than that. As often as > not the singer is a colleague, and even if she isn't, I still don't > want to give her something unworkable. I don't think there's > anything wrong with a singer wanting to transpose down, but I hate to > give an ugly, hard-to-read score to the pianist. If it's an audition > situation where the pianist is sight-reading, he or she might fumble > over a hard-to-read score, making things that much more difficult for > the singer, and the audition becomes a disaster. > > I guess there's two parts to my question: > > (1) As an engraver, how do you typically go about making the > transposition more readable? Do you cross-staff the lower RH notes > into the bass clef? or maybe cross staff the whole part down? or > maybe you switch the RH to a bass clef for extended passages? > > (2) Suppose the singer is going to sing the transposed piece in > recital, and you're involved. How do you feel about the pianist > simply playing the original accompaniment pushed down a fourth? Does > it really sound good down there? If not, what do you do about it? > Do you revoice some of the chords so that they sound better. Do you > move unusually low sections up an octave? > > Surely I'm not the only one who has had to deal with this. My > primary background is classical, but I'm not so out of touch that I > haven't noticed that most female pop singers nowadays sing way down > in the low range. Most contemporary songs must be written that way, > so what is the standard style for piano accompaniment for such > songs? Do they tend harmonize above the voice? Do they just stay > down low and let the pianist deal with having his right hand in the > tenor octave all the time? And if so, how is that typically written? > > I appreciate any thoughts or observations. > > mdl > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
