Re:Transposing instrument best practice

[Flaming Hakama by Elaine]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lukas-Fabian Moser <address@hidden>
To: Simon Albrecht <address@hidden>, lilypond-user <address@hidden>
Cc: 
Bcc: 
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2019 00:40:31 +0200
Subject: Re: Transposing instrument best practice
Hi,

> Given the highly confusing nature of the subject, wouldn’t it be
> better if the NR took a clear stance toward one of the ways as ‘best
> practice’?
>
> Which way would that be? What experiences did you make?

(I still dispute the description of the subject as highly confusing, but
this may be an instance of "déformation professionnelle" since I am
often in the position of having to convince students that there is no
need to fear transposing instruments ;-).)

For what it's worth, I can describe my practice - for me it may well be
"best" practice:

GENERAL RULE: I like to have the contents of a music variable in concert
pitch at all times. This means, I want to make sure that if I just combine

<<
   \new Staff \clarinetI
   \new Staff \clarinetII
   \new Staff \violinI
 >>

in conjunction with \midi, everything should fit.

This implipes:

ENTERING: Whether I actually enter the \clarinetI notes in written or in
sounding pitch depends on the source. In most cases, the source will be
transposing (not in sounding pitch), and since I'm too lazy to transpose
on-the-fly, I enter written pitch and wrap everything in a \transpose
command:

clarinetI = \transpose c' a {
   % music copied directly from a part written for Clarinet in a.
} % the variable now contains the music in concert pitch

(Actually, this means that while entering the Clarinet music, I "hear"
the piece in the wrong key since, having perfect pitch, I tend to hear
the note of the name I'm typing. That's not ideal, but less of an
inconvenience than transposing everything while typing.)

Of course, one can also omit the \transpose command and instead perform
an actual transposition of the written note names using the neat tools
that Frescobaldi offers. This way one actually "sees" concert pitch in
the source code.

SCORE/PART DESIGN: Since all my music variables are in sounding pitch, I
have to re-transpose them when creating the actual score and parts (I
almost never create concert pitch scores):

\new Staff \with { instrumentName = \markup{ Clarinetto in \italic la }
} { \transposition a \transpose a c' \clarinetI }

Here, the \transposition command makes sure that a midi file that might
be generated from the score uses the right transposition.


Of course, this way of handling things leads to a redundant bunch of
transpositions and re-transpositions (if I enter a written clarinet part
in written pitch, \transpose it to make sure the music variable contains
sounding pitches, and \transpose it back in order to recreate the
clarinet part for the player). But I like the conceptual idea of my
general rule that a music variable should _always_ contain music in
actual concert pitch.


A drawback of this method seems to be that it's quite hard to implement
mid-piece changes of transposition. I somehow never seem to need this;
but if I ever had the need to typeset an old-style French Horn part that
changes transposition every few bars, I would probably abandon my
"general rule", enter written pitch and define a music function
\changeTransposition that i) issues the proper \transposition command
and ii) generates a text markup like "in fa".

Best
Lukas

I wanted to second just about everything that Lukas said.

I also enter notes transposed (when convenient),
but also store the material in concert pitch in variables.

When entering notes transposed,
I strongly suggest adopting a naming convention
to clarify the pitch of the note entry.

I have yet to run across a situation
that could not be solved by this approach
just using \transpose

\version "2.19.81"

% So, music entry may look like:
 
tenorSaxophoneSongInBb = \relative c'' {
    a8 8 r4 r2 | a8 8 r4 a8 8 r4 | a4. d8 r2 | R1 ||
}

% At some point, I need to mix in the
% global info (signatures, barlines, etc.)
% via a music function.  

globalSong = #(define-music-function (parser location mus) (ly:music?) #{
    << \relative { \key c \major s1*4 \bar "||" } \relative { $mus } >>
#})

% Since the global info is in concert,
% transpose the notes back to concert
% when making this invocation.

tenorSaxophoneGlobalSong = \globalSong { \transpose c bes,, \tenorSaxophoneSongInBb }


% For transposed parts, transpose back
% the version in concert with the global info

\book {
    \bookOutputSuffix "tenor-sax-in-Bb"
    \header {
        title = "C Jam Blues"
        composer = "D. Ellington"
    }
    \score {
        <<
            \new Staff {
                \set Staff.instrumentName = "Tenor Sax in Bb"
                \transpose bes,, c \tenorSaxophoneGlobalSong
            }
        >>
        \layout {
            indent = 4\cm
        }
    }
}


% And use the concert version when convenient

\book {
    \bookOutputSuffix "tenor-sax-concert"
    \header {
        title = "C Jam Blues"
        composer = "D. Ellington"
    }
    \score {
        <<
            \new Staff {
                \set Staff.instrumentName = "Tenor Sax (concert)"
                \clef bass
                \tenorSaxophoneGlobalSong
            }
        >>
        \layout {
            indent = 4\cm
        }
        \midi { }
    }
}


HTH,

Elaine Alt
415 . 341 .4954                                           "Confusion is highly underrated"
address@hidden
Producer ~ Composer ~ Instrumentalist ~ Educator
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