Horn Transposition Made Easy
by Stewart Thorp
(JEWM Staff Member & Horn player?)
When playing
the horn, one of the major obstacles is the issue of transposition. This short
article sets out to demystify the subject in a clear and approachable way for
both teacher and pupil.
Firstly,
what do we mean by ‘transposition’? Quite simply, transposition means making a
piece of music sound higher or lower. To put it simply, the transposition of a
set A by n semitones is designated by Tn(A),
representing the addition (mod 12) of integer n to each of the pitch class integers………… but hang on, let’s make
it even easier...
When we see
‘Horn in F’ this quite simply means that when we play a C we get an F. So, when
we have ‘Horn in Eb’ in our score and we see a C in the music we must play a C
that will sound like an Eb. So far so good! So, how do we get a C to sound like
an Eb? Eb is quite close to F isn’t it, so couldn’t we just pull the tuning
slide out? Well no, don’t be ridiculous! We’d need to have a very long tuning
slide and that would make a trombone; and we wouldn’t want that, would we. To
achieve this amount of pitch change we need to transpose, which is where we
started. All this nonsense of using the tuning slide is just an irritating and
pointless distraction. I wonder if you’re really suited to the horn. Anyway, if
a C sounds an F on an F horn then it stands to reason that we need to play a
bit lower to get an Eb, but how much lower? Well, let’s try playing a B, which
is a bit lower than a C, and see where this gets us. Playing a B on an F horn
will produce an E. Aha, almost there! The next logical step (half-step really,
but let’s not complicate the matter) is to play a Bb on the F horn which will
produce an Eb. We’re there! Quite simply then, when we have a horn in Eb part
to play on an F horn and we see the written note C we need to play a Bb to
produce an Eb. And that’s all there is to it! You are now able to read a part
for horn in Eb and play all Cs with confidence!
In my next
article I will deal with the written note G for horn in Eb on an F horn and why
playing a horn in F part on a Bb horn is a metaphoric anachronism. Happy
blowing!