I must confess to knowing nothing about brass instruments and I hope this is not a strupid question.
My daughter has just started learning the trombone and now that she can play five notes and has got a tutor book (she is learning classical trombone in the bass clef) I am wondering why the trombone is not written as a transposing B flat instrument like the trumpet. Assuming I haven't got totally mixed up about how to transpose, it seems to me that if it was written as a transposing instrument, instead of her first notes being B flat, C, D, E flat, F, they would have been C, D, E, F, making note reading easier (you don't have to worry about what a flat is) and meaning she could play easy tunes printed in books for other instruments that we have lying about the house. (OK so it would be "wrong" with the piano but they are tunes she knows).

I suppose conversly, if the trombone is not a transposing instrument, why is the trumpet (and clarinet and anything else in B flat) written as a transposing instrument?

I don't actually play the trombone myself but I understand that the slide positions vary depending on which clef you're playing. In bass clef the trombone plays in C but in treble clef it's in Bb. Don't know why there is a difference.

in brass bands the tenor trombones are transposing instruments (the bass trombone is not) and they read treble clef - just a like a cornet or trumpet would. Makes reading significantly easier and does away with the need for loads of ledger lines as BB parts will often have the 1st trombonists playing above the stave (treble clef)

It is for the reason alone that when I start a new trombonist off I always ask what sort of ensemble they are hoping to play in. If the answer is brass bands then I teach them treble clef (up to about G5 and then I make the learn bass clef as well) and tenor clef as some of the older Brass band pieces have the trombones in tenor clef

KixMusic has said it all really. I think that treble clef is the best to start off on as its the clef you learn at school, so you only learn one clef and not two. And also if you want to play with people their music will probably be in treble clef

I'm not sure I have completely understood.

Does this mean that if you are playing in a brass band and reading treble clef in first position you would read a C and a G?

In which case if you have learnt classical trombone and then play in a brass band it is not just a question of learning to read the treble clef but you also have to relearn the relationship between the written note and the position? If so it all sounds very confusing.

My daughter was given no choice about what clef she was learning (do brass bands in France have the same system I wonder?) In any case she already plays the cello and so can read the bass clef and not the treble clef.

When you play in a brass band reading the treble clef, the written note middle C will sound as Bb.

Don't worry about the fact that your daughter is learning the bass clef - every full set of brass band music includes a part for bass trombone as well as the treble clef parts.

Instead of learning a whole new set of positions for use on the other clef, I think it would be easier to learn another clef.

Does that make sense ?

Edit : I remember my teacher a while ago discussing it with another pupil and I think that she said that she knocks it up or down a tone and then add some sharps or flats, can't work it out at the moment

Getting more and more confused...
Does "bass" trombone just mean it is written in the bass clef?
(ie it's not an instrument that has a lower range than an ordinary trombone?)

Transposing does nothing to the most appropriate notes to start on, it merely changes what you hear, not what you read. Clarinet tutors usually begin with E,D,C; and as a Bb instrument this sounds D,C,Bb at concert pitch. If the clarinet was tuned in C, the first notes would still be E,D,C; just you would hear it that way at concert pitch. Similarly flutes usually start B,A,G; the fact it is tuned in C has nothing to do with this. I assume the same applies to brass.

I don't know why, but I do know trombone is more modern than trumpet. Back in the Baroque, Classical, Romantic periods when trumpets were much more prevelant than trombone, they could be tuned to almost any key, as could horns. This leaves modern players with some horrid transpositions, like the Dvorak New World Symphony for trumpet in E, played an augmented fourth out on the Bb. Ouch. Presumably the Bb was considered the best tone wise so has remained that way, while trombone may be best in C.

I assumed that the clarinet started with E,D,C and the flute (and oboe and recorder) with B,A,G because in both cases they are "easy" fingerings" which just involve adding (or removing) the fingers of the left hand. Surely if the clarinet was not a transposing instrument you would still start with the same fingerings but the pupil would be reading D,C,Bb (and you as a teacher would be immediately having to explain what a flat was)

This was the point I was trying to make (but obviously not very clearly).

From looking at her tutor book the trombone seems to want to be a B flat instrument. The first three notes the book teaches are B flat, E flat and A flat. Were it written like the clarinet (or trumpet) this would be C, F and B which would be a lot easier for a beginner to read. Fairly rapidly there are tunes in D flat major (that's a lot of flats for a beginner). There is not a single sharp in the whole book and if there is anything in C major it is well hidden.



What do you mean by "tone wise"? I'm afraid I don't understand why/how writing a Bb as a C changes the tone.

In her tutor book, which clef are the notes written in?

Her tutor book is in the bass clef (and it's a French one whose title I can't remember off the top of my head, something like "lire, écouter, jouer").

Yeh - So the Bb, Eb, and Ab, she learnt would be in 1st, 3rd and 3rd position?

So she is playing in C. So there is no transposition involved

It doesn't change the tone, BUT, what Neil means is that, for example, a clarinet in C, one in Bb, and one in A, will all sound slightly different in terms of tone, which is why someone didn't just say, "hey, let's make all clarinets in C instead" - ditto trumpets, a trumpet in C (one on which the easiest set of fingerings is in C major and therefore needs no transposition to make the music less evil to read) will sound different from one in Bb (where "BAG" at pitch may have evil fingerings). This is why we have transposing instruments really, besides historical and other reasons (I have a feeling the horn is extra complex in this regard...? I am not a brass player...) - if a clarinet in C sounded just as good as one in Bb, then I guess clarinets would've been changed to non-transposing instruments many years ago Make any sense? So neil's assumption (and I've no idea if it is correct) is that the trombone sounds best when the instrument is in the key of C. The whole Bb, Eb, Ab thing seems to give the lie to that though - I'm afraid I know almost nothing about the trombone...

The whole making-life-easier thing is why alto flutes and (I think...) cor anglais are transposing instruments...

[/quote]

Her tutor book is in the bass clef (and it's a French one whose title I can't remember off the top of my head, something like "lire, écouter, jouer").
[/quote]

Is it the 'Look, Listen and Learn' series?

I'd suggest finding out if she's learning from a 'band method' book (where the tutor books are designed to allow a mixture of woodwind and brass instruments to be taught and play together). The fact that her first 3 notes are Bb, Eb and Ab makes me think that this may be the case - in the band method tutor book I'm familiar with (Standard of Excellence) these are the first 3 notes for the C instruments, whilst the Bb instruments start on C, D and E.

[quote name='sarah-flute' post='411318' date='Oct 21 2006, 11:25 PM']
[quote name='kerioboe' post='411188' date='Oct 21 2006, 09:56 PM'][quote name='neil.clarinet' post='411166' date='Oct 21 2006, 08:36 PM']Presumably the Bb was considered the best tone wise so has remained that way, while trombone may be best in C.[/quote]What do you mean by "tone wise"? I'm afraid I don't understand why/how writing a Bb as a C changes the tone.[/quote]It doesn't change the tone, BUT, what Neil means is that, for example, a clarinet in C, one in Bb, and one in A, will all sound slightly different in terms of tone.
[/quote]
I realise that if you change the actual basic pitch of the instrument that this will change the tone but I was really referring to the conventions of writing the notes down.

As you rightly say (editing slightly I hope you don't mind)
[quote]
a trumpet in Bb is one with the easiest set of fingering and therefore needs no transposition to make the music less evil to read (whereas "BAG" at pitch may have evil fingerings).
[/quote]

The whole point I was trying to make is that, as far as I can see, the trombone is not an easy instrument to play in C major. If you put it together and blow into it without moving the slide and without doing very much to your lip position you get a Bb. So why is the trumpet a transposing instrument and not the trombone?

[quote]
The whole making-life-easier thing is why alto flutes and (I think...) cor anglais are transposing instruments...
[/quote]

You're right the cor-anglais is a transposing instrument. It is a fifth below like the treble recorder (compared to the descant). I suppose we could also ask why recorder players learn a different set of fingerings for each recorder when oboe/cor-anglais players just use one (and let the composer do the work...)


[quote name='Allannah' date='Oct 22 2006, 09:15 AM' post='411372']
[quote]
Her tutor book is in the bass clef (and it's a French one whose title I can't remember off the top of my head, something like "lire, écouter, jouer").
[/quote]
[quote]
Is it the 'Look, Listen and Learn' series?
[/quote]
As far as I can make out it is a French book (it doesn't say it is translated or adapted from another language). She has an individual lesson so it is not a question of doing what the other instruments do. The trombone teacher teaches only trombone and there are separate trumpet and French horn teachers.

Actually I am not really bothered which clef she learns or what notes she learns. It was really just intellectual curiosity on my part. When you look at most tutor books they tend not to start immediately (at the first lesson) with a flat and pupils tend not to be playing in D flat major by the end of the first year!

Like I said, I know almost nothing about trombone, beyond the weird two clefs/transposing thing - I don't know why, in this case, if the usual reasons don't apply - sorry.

Arghh !! I am getting a little confused myself now

Is the trombone a non transposing instrument ? You put the slide in 1st position and blow and it sounds a Bb. If you told a treble clef reader to play a note in first position with a low lip setting they would say they are playing a C, which sounds a Bb. This therefore makes it a transposing instrument in the key of Bb. But if you asked a Bass Clef reader to play a note in 1st position with a low lip setting, they would say they were playing a Bb and they would sound a Bb, thus making it a non transposing intrument in the Key of C.

So is it or is it not a transposing instrument.

Why is a C on a clarinet a C even though it sounds a Bb ?

I am going to print off this thread and show it to my teacher to see if she has anythought on the matter

What makes the trumpet a transposing intrument? Surley if I said that the current fingering for a D on flute was called a C, then it would make the flute a transposing instrument in the key of Bb

The most common trombone is in Bb but you can get, tenor Trombones that have been/are pitched in Bb, C, & A. Alto Trombones that are available in F, Eb, and at one time: D. Bass Trombones that can be (basically) in Bb, C, F, Eb, D & G. Contrabass Trombones that are available in F, Eb, CC,BBb, & AA. Sopranos that are available in C, Bb, & at one time: G. Sopraninos that are in Eb. Even the Piccolo Trombones are available in both Bb & C. Soprano, Sopranino & Piccolo Trombones are written in transposed treble clef because they are usually played by Trumpet players.

The standard tenor trombone is a Bb instrument BUT bass clef music for this instrument is written in C (i.e. concert pitch). All treble clef music is transposed to the pitch of the instrument. Eg. French horn, trumpets, saxes, clarinets. Why isn't bass clef music transposed to the key of the instrument just like it is for instruments playing treble clef? Why are the low brass parts (trombone, euphonium, baritone, tuba) considered non-transposing? This is inconsistent with all instruments. In the brass band each instrument’s music is written in treble clef and transposed to the pitch of the horns.

The Treble Clef parts in Brass Bands is tradition. The theory was that anyone could play any part (assuming Valve Trombones), with only the slide to learn if using a slide Trombone. It's not uncommon even today, of brass band personnel to play Eb Horn one year, Baritone Horn the next year, & possibly Flugelhorn the following year. But the Tubas in a sense, like the recorders, & even to a lessor extant Trombones, CAN be transposing instruments outside of the Brass Band. No we don't transpose the music, but to those of us multi-instrumentalists, we do, in a sense, transpose fingerings/slide positions. Eb Tubas, F Tubas, CC Tubas, BBb Tubas ALL read in concert pitch in Orchestral, Yet they don't finger the same notes the same way. Same is true of recorders, Soprano, Tenor, & Great Bass are in C, The Sopranino, Alto, Bass, & Contrabass are in F, But ALL Recorder music is in C Treble. When I play F Alto Trombone or Eb Alto Trombone, all of the positions are different for each note. All the music is in concert pitch except brass bands, no matter which Clef is used.

There are some examples of transposed bass clef - Strauss tenor tuba parts in B flat bass clef, for instance - but these are relatively rare. Some of the traditions for transposition for higher brass instruments come out of the time that they were not fully chromatic, and different crooks were used to put them in the appropriate key. Trombones never had to do this since the slide made them chromatic. As far as brass bands go, the transposed treble clef for everything (except bass trombone and percussion) is a tradition that developed to allow players to be moved to another instrument with little fuss if the band needed them there. An extra cornet player might be asked to switch to euphonium, and be expected to be covering the part in a week or two - learning a new clef would slow down his progress on the new instrument. These are generalisations - I'm sure that there were other reasons that these traditions developed, but since they're there, it's a good idea for any serious trombone player to be familiar with bass, tenor and alto clefs, as well as treble in B flat and in C.


I hope that makes sense

Thanks Ben, that's wonderfully clear. (Was that your teacher's answer, if so please pass on my thanks to him/her).

It's a bit odd describing instruments as transposing. I prefer to think of the composer as having provided a transposed part, and the player as transposing it back to produce the correct pitch for the piece. The instrument is neither transposing nor concert pitch.

The tradition of transposed parts started with the natural trumpet and horn. Until the 18th C,* these instruments could produce only the notes of the so-called harmonic series, so that composers asked for instruments that were of a suitable length to provide useful notes in the key of the piece. Trumpets were usually built in D, and sometimes were provided with an extra loop that could take them down to C. Bach appears to have known a player with a trumpet in F, but some people think that the second Brandenburg Concerto was played on a horn. Horns got end crooks in the 18th C., so orchestral horns could be set for up to 15 different lengths (Ab up to Bb an octave above). The point of transposed parts was that they were easier for the players to read. When the 19th C. instrument makers, notably the Belgian Adolphe Sax, started producing complete families of instruments in a large range of sizes, the use of transposing parts continued to provide ease of transfer from one size to another.

* when horn players learnt to change the pitch with their right hand in the bell and a trumpet was made with keys to add some extra notes.

For various reasons, even when the brass instruments had valves added to them (from about 1825) composers continued to think of horns and trumpets in various keys, and write transposed parts for them.

Trombones were first made about 1475, and because they had a complete set of notes were considered concert pitch instruments right up to the 19th C., when they joined the brass band. The original trombone/sackbut had only six slide positions, and there is some evidence from the position of the centre of gravity of early instruments that first position was not used. The tenor instrument was therefore not thought of as being built in Bb. It seems likely that 6th position was thought of as "home", and that a C major scale was played as follows:

Note Slide Position
C . . 6
D . . 4
E . . 2
F . . 6
G . . 4
A . . 2
B . . 4
C . . 3

At some later date, I would guess in 17th or 18th C., the balance of the trombone was changed so that 1st position could be used and the tenor instrument was then found to give a Bb series.

Orchestral tubas are made in several different lengths. The Bb euphonium occasionally gets into the orchestra under the name tenor tuba, but is always given a bass clef concert pitch part, because C euphoniums, though rare, do exist. Bass tubas are built in F, Eb, C, and Bb (twice the length of the euphonium) and it is unreasonable to expect the publisher to print 3 transposed parts in addition to the one in concert pitch that is actually provided. Whatever instrument an orchestral player owns, he can easily learn to play it from concert pitch parts.

Orchestral parts for tuba in Bb and F (Bruckner symphonies 7, 8 and 9, Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring") are for Wagner tubas, invented for "The Ring of the Nibelungs". These are usually played by horn players and have a sound half way between horns and trombones.

From the 18th C. into the first half of the 19th, double basses were played from the same parts as the 'cellos (initially also bassoons) but sounding an octave lower. The tradition of octave transposition has continued. Having once played in a wind band, from bass tuba parts at actual pitch and nearly all leger lines, I am strongly in favour of this tradition.

Thanks Kenm I found that extremley interesting

Thank you

No. the difference between a tenor trombone and a bass trombone is the bass trombone has an additional valve which allows u to play notes in the 7th position while keeping the slide in the first. ..and the bass trombone has a larger mouthpiece as compared to the tenor trombone

This is a description of a past state of affairs. Nowadays, things are a bit more complicated.

New tenor trombones are made in two main styles and several different bores. Orchestral tenors typically have one valve, which introduces the same amount of tubing as moving the slide to 6th position and takes the series of notes down a perfect fourth. They are usually medium to large bore. Jazz tenors typically have no valve and have smaller bores; since solos are usually played at a microphone, there is no need for large volume.

Modern bass trombones may have only one valve, but more usually have two. When I came to write this, I realised that I didn't know what their precise functions were, so I did a Google search and found this:

http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/faq/faq_text/valves.html

It turns out to be even more complicated than I had thought, so I won't bother to paraphrase it.


Yes, and also a larger bore and bell than a tenor for the same musical genre.

There used to be national preferences in orchestral trombone sections. Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann wrote nearly always for one each of alto,[1] tenor and bass.[2] Their scores often have trombones 1 & 2 written in alto clef, and you can find the same notational convention as late as Shostakovich. AFAIK, the alto trombone was never popular in France. Debussy occasionally wrote for three tenors.

[1] Usually D length.

[2] The old style bass built to G length, still current in the early 20th C., with no valves and a handle on the slide because arms are not long enough; the bore was much smaller than modern basses.

This all looks very confusing. As a trombone player I learnt Bass Clef. When I played with a brass band I learnt to read Treble Clef(in Bb) as required I learnt Tenor then Alto Clef. Then Concert Pitch Treble Clef. You see the trombone player is a bit of a chameleon. Any bone player worth his/her slide will learn all these things because the job of playing this wonderful instrumet states that you learn all clefs bewcause you will meet them. I would always recommend that one begins in Bass Clef. If it is a case of playing in a group of treble clef readers then any teacher worth his wage will write the parts into bass clef.

By the way the trombone or sackbut has been around for 500 years! The first truly chromatic brass instrument. Definitely pre baroque!