> I've been a pianist for 45 years and a clarinetist for 40, so I am > comfortably aware of transposition issues, but what you're saying > doesn't explain the issues I pointed out. If a piece is in concert D > and I am asked to play it on my Bb clarinet, my music should have a key > signature of E. If I am asked to shift to an A clarinet, the key > signature of the music should shift to F. That rule has not been > followed in the Dvorak. >
That "rule" has never held for horns. Even composers as recent as Ravel never used key signatures in a horn part; I have never seen one, in my time teaching orchestration. It's simply one of the idiosyncrasies of orchestration. I have Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky open right now: G# minor key signature, but the Horns in F have none; they get accidentals strewn all over the place. Same in Debussy. Same for all composers everywhere all the time. I think it's mostly a matter of tradition. A long, long time ago, neither key signatures nor accidentals would have been necessary; it would all have been diatonic, with horns crooked (transposed) to the right key. And some lazy horn player probably protested if they ever got one :) -- Neil Thornock, D.M. No Stopping, Standing, or Parking: http://neilthornock.net/mp3s/nostopping.mp3 Assistant Professor of Music Composition/Theory Brigham Young University _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
