Way back in undergrad theory, we were painstakingly, over a period of time, analyzing the Wagner "Tristan" Prelude and Liebestod from the miniature full scores. If you recall, that is a particular challenge, besides the obvious harmonic ones, as it features such transposing favorites as a pair each of horns in F and E, bass clef-bass clarinet in A, trumpets in F, plenty of tenor clef, etc. One class I noticed a singer next to me was using, instead of the tiny full score, a piano reduction he had found in an anthology. I remarked something negative on that, he said, rather defensively and unconvincingly, that he checked everything with the full score, blah, blah.
Flash forward about five years, I'm playing a recording date in studio for previously mentioned singer who has written an advertising jingle. Guess what? We get bogged down because of (who'd-a-guessed it?) transposition errors in some of the parts. We have to stop and fix the parts, we go into overtime, singer-leader is sweating because he's going over budget. It's good for singers to learn to transpose, also. Raymond Horton Bass Trombonist, Louisville Orchestra Minister of Music, Edwardsville (IN) UMC Composer, Arranger VISIT US AT rayhortonmusic.com On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 9:15 PM, John Howell <[email protected]> wrote: > At 2:41 PM -0500 10/1/12, Robert Patterson wrote: > >No, I mean vocal chamber music with transposing instruments. > > > Ahhh. That didn't occur to me. Sorry. But why > is that really a problem? 90% of singers > couldn't read a viola part in alto clef, either, > but *I* would want to see it where it belongs. > Isn't that what the piano reduction is for in the > first place? It WILL be used for practice as the > singer learns his or her part. > > 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 > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
