Am 03.04.2009 um 19:20 schrieb Anthony W. Youngman:
Ow!
Sorry, reading this was painful (I play the trombone, as many of
you know :-)
1.64 concert pitch
The pitch at which the piano and other non-transposing instruments
play, such music is said to be 'in C'. Officially, it is defined as
"A = 440", meaning that the note A in the treble clef indicates a
sound that has a frequency of 440Hz. There are other standard
frequencies, but they have mostly fallen into disuse.
This convention is used for (almost?) all instruments with multiple
sounding parts, eg tuned percussion and strings.
Instruments with a single sounding part (woodwind, brass) follow a
different convention and are generally known as transposing
instruments, although for some instruments (eg flute, oboe), the
two conventions lead to the same result. The trombone is unusual in
that music for it can be written using either or both conventions.
1.311 transposing instrument
Instruments whose notated pitch is different from concert pitch.
Most of these instruments are identified in their name by their
fundamental pitch - this being the note whose wavelength is equal
to length of the instrument. For example Concert A is 440Hz, the
speed of sound in air is 343m/s, therefore an A clarinet (or any
other A wind instrument) will have a length of 343/440 = 78cm. (Or
be a power of 2 longer or shorter.)
This note is always written as middle C in the treble clef, and is
usually referred to as "being in 'X'" where X is the fundamental of
the instrument it's written for. It is normal, however, to leave
the "in X" off of the music as being redundant because it's already
been specified in the instrument's name. So music marked as "A
Clarinet" or "Bb Trumpet" will be assumed to be in A or Bf.
Where an instrument's range falls naturally within the treble clef,
the reference to the instrument should always either specify the
fundamental as part of the instrument name, or specify the
transposition, so the player knows what pitch the music is written
in - "alto flute in G", "G flute", "alto flute in C".
If the music is written in C it is normal convention NOT to mention
the fundamental, and only say "in C" if it is needed to prevent
confusion.
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If anybody can improve on those entries I'm all ears, otherwise can
somebody update the glossary? For the most part, I've just been far
more pedantic, but the existing bit about the trombone is, I'm
sorry, just plain wrong!
Cheers,
Wol
--
Anthony W. Youngman - anth...@thewolery.demon.co.uk
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Not to channel graham, but you would probably be a good candidate for
re-writing it. If only from a trombonist's point of view.
James E. Bailey
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