Does anyone transpose?

[bernhard]

Tereza Carreno:  “Another item my zealous teacher insisted upon was transposing. I absorbed this idea almost unconsciously, and hardly know when I learned to transpose, so natural did it seem to me. (…) I had many etudes also; a great deal of Czerny. Each etude must also be transposed for it would never do to play an etude twice in the same key (…) So I may say that whatever I could perform at all, I was able to play in any key.”

Earl Wilde: “Take this E major Etude (0p. 10 no. 3), for example, which is one of the most beautiful studies Chopin wrote. I played it at a concert some time ago in the key of D major (it’s even more beautiful in that key, I think). It was so funny… only one member of the audience remarked on it. He must have had perfect pitch. And then there is the first Etude op. 25, the so called “Aeolian”. If you play it in the key of G flat. Instead of its original key of A flat, it sounds fantastic. Why? Because, since Chopin’s time, pitch has increased ever so slightly. Therefore when I play in these transposed keys, I’m probably playing in the key that Chopin would have heard it.”

Does any of you work on your pieces/exercises in this way (by transposing it to different leys)? What do you think of this method of practice?

And if so, do you transpose on the spot (by ear and position) or do you relearn the piece from a score in the new key?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Apparently not...
Bernhard.

[schnabels_grandson]

Sorry for the belated reply.  I transpose occasionally, mostly with Hanon and sometimes Czerny.  I think it can make the exercises more interesting.  As for regular pieces, changing the key can make certain pieces more appealing to the ear.  I am usually too lazy to write out a new copy or too cheap to buy one, so I just do my best playing it through and pretending it is already in the key I want.

[bernhard]

Thanks.
Bernhard.

[allchopin]

I think I have tried this once, only to admit defeat.  I definitely cannot do this on the fly- way too much thinking for this pianist- but after a little practice I could do it.

I don't think Earl knew what he was talking about- pitch cannot simply "change"- it is a set frequency of sound waves.  Perhaps the measuring equipment has changed, but not pitch, and it never will.

[eddie92099]

I don't think Earl knew what he was talking about- pitch cannot simply "change"- it is a set frequency of sound waves.  Perhaps the measuring equipment has changed, but not pitch, and it never will.

Surely if the measuring equipment has changed, then the actual pitch at which the composers heard the notes have changed. I think it's you who doesn't know what he's talking about,
Ed

P.s. have you not heard of Baroque pitch?

[allchopin]

Hmm, Baroque pitch- the frequency of A=415, a semitone lower than that note of modern pianos, of use starting in the 18th century- yes perhaps I have heard of it.  The tuning fork was invented in 1711, allowing pianos then to be tuned to the correct pitch, and not simply to singing pitch.  In this way, pitch could not have changed since Chopin's time, a century later from 1810-49, and so we would be hearing the same pitch Chopin would have been hearing. Your turn.

[bernhard]

Allchopin wrote:

“I think I have tried this once, only to admit defeat.  I definitely cannot do this on the fly- way too much thinking for this pianist- but after a little practice I could do it.”

Thanks for the input. I find this practice very useful, but in the beginning I found it almost impossible to do it by ear/position. So I started relearning the piece from the score (transposed). After the first key changes, something clicked and now I can do it, for simple pieces. I wonder if Earl transposed the study on the spot (seems unthinkable at my present stage) or if he just relearnt it from scratch in D major.

”I don't think Earl knew what he was talking about- pitch cannot simply "change"- it is a set frequency of sound waves.  Perhaps the measuring equipment has changed, but not pitch, and it never will.”

He knows what he is talking about. It has nothing to do with the pitch itself or with equipment. It is a matter of convention. There is no reason to associate middle A with 440Hz. At the beginning of the 20th century a bunch of musicians got together and decided that A would be 440 Hz and that was that. Before that there was quite a lot of variation both in regards to time and place. So for instance, Mozart used A = 421.6 HZ; Handel used A = 422.5 Hz, and Bach used A = 415.5 Hz. Concert pitch in Berlin at mid-eigthteenth century was A = 422Hz.

Only after 1820 did concert pitch started to rise (by a decision of the musicians involved, not because the pitch itself increased, or the apparatus changed) simply because they wanted to produce a more brilliant sound. In the 19th century it was basically the French musicians who pushed standard pitch ever higher so that their music would sound more brilliant.

In fact, nowadays, most orchestras tune to a pitch that is actually higher than 440 Hz.

If this interests you, have a look at pages 495 - 504 of “The sensations of tone” by Hermann Helmholtz (Dover) where there is a huge table listing all the pitches that have been used (mostly in Europe) from 1361 to 1900.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[eddie92099]

Thanks,
Ed

[bernhard]

You are welcome.
Bernhard.

[srdabney]

In all the discussion of pitch, no one has brought up the that the magic of transposition is in memorizing the tone intervals themselves, and they haven't changed since well temperment.

For fun, take the easiest of Bachs WTC preludes ... C major and memorize its intervals ... Listen to it over and over ... even sing it. But dont play it.

Then sit down and start on b instead of c ... and see how far you get. Its good practice and when you nail the intervals, every musical trick becomes a simpler, especially improvisation.  

On an aside ...
Imagine, back in the day, when a performer was expected to extemporaneously roll off a fugue from a theme given at performance time. Scary as it sounds, this is *much* easier if you memorize your intervals.

Cheers,
Scott

[allchopin]

That is interesting Bernhard.  I am aware that they had their own conventions of pitches, but the reason that we use 440 today is because it complies with the eardrum and how we interpret sounds.  Mathematically, the pitch sounds "better" at 440 than at 421.5.  For this reason, I would think that they would have tuned to this pitch always- and generally, orchestras tune to the oboe, because it has the most propensity to change pitch,a dn is docile to temperature.  

[bernhard]

SRD wrote:

“In all the discussion of pitch, no one has brought up the that the magic of transposition is in memorizing the tone intervals themselves, and they haven't changed since well temperament.”

You are absolutely right. In fact this is exactly what happened to me once I had been transposing for a while. Something clicked, and what the click was, was to work by intervals, rather than by notes. I believe that a similar process happens with sight-reading, when one starts reading by intervals, rather than by notes. This is a really helpful idea.

Yes, we did get sidetracked with the pitch subject, did we not?

Bernhard.

[bernhard]

Allchopin wrote:
"I am aware that they had their own conventions of pitches, but the reason that we use 440 today is because it complies with the eardrum and how we interpret sounds.  Mathematically, the pitch sounds "better" at 440 than at 421.5."

This is interesting, although I cannot follow why associating A with 440 would comply better with the eardrum, or mathematically sound better. Can you give more details (or a reference?).

Meanwhile what about this alternative (and intriguing) viewpoint?

Every time you double the frequency, you go one octave higher. Therefore, even though we are equipped to hear only frequencies in the 60Hz – 20000Hz range (give or take a few Hz), there is no reason why we could not take higher or lower frequencies than those, and by doubling (or halving) them, get to the corresponding note at an octave that is audible. In fact any periodical phenomenon should be amenable to this treatment. Take the moon, which has a period (that is, from full moon to full moon) of 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds. This works out to be 2,551,442.8seconds. The frequency of the moon is the inverse of that number: 1 / 2,551,442.8. = 3.919,315 x 10-7 Hz (with me so far?). This is too low a frequency to be audible, so we must double it 30 times to get to the audible sound of 420.837 Hz! This corresponds roughly to G# - not the most important note in our music. However, this moon frequency happens to be very close to the standard pitch of early classical and baroque times. From this we could conclude that the music of that time resonated with the moon, while in our times we have fallen completely out of step with such natural cycle.

Hmmm… Maybe I should start a new thread on this (on the religious section? Music and magic?).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[bitus]

What do you think the advantage/disadvantage of having perfect pitch is in this whole transposition deal?
I cannot play by ear on a piano that is transposed... for example, if i transpose an electrical piano from C to D, i won't be able to play, because i think in C major, but i hear D major. That's why i learned to play any piece i play in church in any given key. As for classical music, transposing by ear requires higher attention to details...

The Bitus.