Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Note to self: Don't forget about transposition...

Last week was my second presentation of the cliché composition with real instruments was a success! Before it was ready for presentation however, I had to do a lot of tweaking in order for it to be playable. I wrote the initial score in concert pitch for simplicity, but when it came down to printing off the copy for the players, I realized that the range for the alto horn part was going to be way to high. So I had to transpose the whole score which took a long time. So there wasn't much of an improvement or progress from the week before, which I found kind of disappointing, because I didn't feel like there was much progress. But thats it. You can't make make a lot of progress all the time right? I guess making important improvements like transposition is necessary, and I needed to take the time to fix problems like these when they arise.

I should remember all these mistakes that I make and be sure to pass them on to the next generation of composers going into composition 3100... Maybe I'll write a book...?

1 comment:

Clark Ross said...

In the past, most composers wrote everything in transposed scores, although, for larger works, they would write a piano reduction (or something like that, with just two staves) first and then orchestrate it using a transposed score.

Nowadays, I think many, perhaps most, composers compose using a C score, and then transpose the necessary parts after the composition is finished. If you do it this way, the important thing is to memorize the sounding range of the instruments, as opposed to the written range.

Regarding your idea of making a list of tips for people taking this course in the future, as in, 'if I had to do this over again, here are some things I would do differently,' is a great idea!

Maybe you could do this in your final blog entry, if the idea still appeals? In fact your final blog entry could be a reflection on what worked well in the course, and what didn't work well. I'm going to suggest this to everyone, and then I will take the best suggestions and put them into a blog for students who take this course in the future to read!