Hi All

I understand that where music goes more than 5 lines above the stave, the composer will abbreviate with "8ve".

So in the G5 exam, if you are asked to transpose a piece of music by an octave - Am I right to presume that you would simply pop a square bracket over the notes and write 8ve.

Although its probably a really silly Q, ive never done a theory exam and am going in at grade 5 so I need to be 110% sure...

Ive just brought a book called "take 5 and pass 1st time"..halfway through it and its brilliant - explains everything so easily.

you don't always get 8ve above notes that are more than an octave above the stave. It's only really if substantial sections are almost entirely up in the stratosphere that they're used. You probably shouldn't use them in a transposition question.

Sometimes. It partly depends on the instrument (for example flute and piccolo players are used to reading many ledger lines).

No! They want you to do it properly, even if it does involve drawing lots of ledger lines. Also, not all the examples where you have to transpose up an octave will involve such high notes.

It's not a silly question; I can see your logic. Are you having lessons or teaching yourself?


It can be used even for single notes, I think. Pretty sure I've seen this.

[quote name='sarah123' post='866593' date='Aug 23 2009, 09:00 PM']
you don't always get 8ve above notes that are more than an octave above the stave. It's only really if substantial sections are almost entirely up in the stratosphere that they're used. You probably shouldn't use them in a transposition question.
[/quote]
It can be used even for single notes, I think. Pretty sure I've seen this.
[/quote]

It can be. The only times I've seen that though is when the ledger lines have got really ridiculous ie the top octave of the piano or something.

And the question can ask for you to transpose up and octave and change the clef too.
I THINK that this is the most likely scenario.

I've been working a few past papers recently in preparation for November's Grade 5 exam - and none of them ask to transpose by an octave. This is usually dealt with in Grade 3 theory. In Grade 5, you will be asked to transpose up or down a tone, or up and down by a minor 3rd etc. In other words, you will be asked to differentiate between concert pitch and written pitch for a transposing instrument such as a clarinet.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of. Similarly it can be used when the bass part briefly goes very low (Debussy, for example).


It's in the Grade 5 ABRSM exercise book, but mainly combined with clef changes, I think.

To be precise:
8ve indicates octave BELOW whilst 8va indicates octave ABOVE

No, I think that they will want you to write it out in full by changing clefs.

Thanks for all your replies!!

Very very helpful!! and my Question has been answered.

G5 theory here I come!!!

Got some mock papers to get through, so my teacher has lots of marking to do!!

I thought in formal notation 8va(Ottava) was an octave above, and 8vb was below (Ottava Bassa) and similary 15ma - 2 Octaves Above (Quindicesima) and 15mb - 2 Octaves Below (Quindicesima Bassa). And also collottava meaning play the the written pitch, and also the pitch at the different octave together.