At 1:00 PM -0700 9/17/11, Mark D Lew wrote: >On Sep 16, 2011, at 9:18 AM, Patrick Sheehan wrote: > >> Someone mentioned that the Treble8 clef for tenors much like a transposing >> instrument. Correct! In this sense, the tenors are reading treble clef >> notes but what's coming out of their throat is an octave lower, plus they >> have to think that way too. What sense does that make?! > >It makes a lot of sense. When you tell men, >"sing the same tune as the women", they >instinctively sing it an octave lower. It >doesn't feel like transposing, it feels natural.
There's an interesting point that I'm sure both Mark and Patrick are perfectly aware of, but it's worth mentioning. For my Vocal-Choral Arranging students, I'm careful to point out that there are two kinds of unison: a TRUE unison, with men and women singing the same notes in the same octave at the same frequencies, and an OCTAVE unison with men and women singing an octave apart. (Or in days gone by, church choirs of men and boys.) Both are quite usable in choral music and both are used quite often, but while a singer doesn't really have to worry about it, a composer or arranger DOES, and has to keep track of where the voices are actually sounding. Using the proper traditional clefs is one way to keep that straight, but some students have trouble grasping the difference--especially instrumentalists, even though they would probably not have a problem with it if they were writing for alto and bari saxes!! Choral conductors who work with children and adolescents have a different but related problem: male teachers have to decide whether to demonstrate in their own octave or try to sing in the children's range an octave higher. Female teachers have to try to grovel their voices down to demonstrate baritone or bass parts for changing voices. So there's a relationship here. A part may be notated in exactly the correct octave, but the instrument (or voice) performing it is going to sound in its own octave, not the written one in all cases. (E.g. the alto and bari sax example.) John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music School of Performing Arts & Cinema College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences 290 College Ave., Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[email protected]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "Machen Sie es, wie Sie wollen, machen Sie es nur schön." (Do it as you like, just make it beautiful!) --Johannes Brahms _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
