I wondered if someone would choose the option that isn't. Almost any horn player who is trying to be pro is trying to make the transition to orchestra as quickly as possible, because that is where almost all professional grade horn music is. (I know about the military bands, but horn players choose to do that much later, when it is that or starve.)
There are essentially no key signatures in orchestral horn parts. It isn't a matter of training. Of course pro horn players know how to read key signatures. It's a question of do you have 10,000 hours doing it like you do transposing in every key. The sure sign of an amateur horn player is one who writes the F horn note names over notes transposed in other keys. The sure sign of a pro is one who writes in courtesy accidentals on an F part with a key signature, esp. if there is only one rehearsal. But let's be clear. The parts accumulate the penciled accis. Usually the pops charts I read are coming from a tour of other orchestras. They write in their trouble spots and I merely add mine. (A trouble spot is any note that I failed to push the right buttons the first/only time through.) By the time the arranger gets his part back, it looks like some idiot marked in every acci. On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 5:48 AM, David H. Bailey < [email protected]> wrote: > On 6/9/2012 6:16 PM, Robert Patterson wrote: > > About the key sigs, I guess I am confused. Are you saying you would > rather > > them play the wrong notes than pencil in the accis? Because that's your > > choice given one rehearsal (which is how many most of my gigs with key > sigs > > have). > > > [snip] > > My choice would be horn players who are trained to read key signatures > -- I'm surprised that there are still horn players who aren't used to > playing music with key signatures, especially given the fact that most > horn players in the United States at least began their horn playing in > school bands, where there are always key signatures (unless the horn > part is truly in the key of C major or A minor, in which case there is > still a key signature -- it's just empty). > > Players of every other instrument learn to play with key signatures, why > are horn players different? > > Of course, if it's truly necessary for a good performance, writing in > accidentals is something every musician does in trouble spots, but > having to write in every accidental? That's silly. > > > -- > David H. Bailey > [email protected] > > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
