David Doggett wrote:
Likewise, Tenor and Soprano saxes are both in Bb. So when Coltrane picked up Soprano toward the end of his career, he didn't have to switch keys on all the songs he already knew on Tenor.
Dave, I'm pretty sure Soprano saxes are in C, aren't they?
ON EDIT:
Nope. I stand corrected. I called a Sax player friend of mine and he explained that most Soprano's are in fact commonly Bb. However, he said that the straight Soprano Saxes also come in C, Bb and (although rare) Eb. He said that many of straight soprano players tend to prefer the C Soprano Sax for some reason.
Last edited by Mark Treepaz on 26 Aug 2009 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You know, I wrote that in jest, and not being a horn player, I'm totally clueless about what they can and can't do, but it seems that a capo could be simply and easily made with either an extended mouthpiece, or some sort of insert between the mouthpiece and the rest of the instrument.
Mike Perlowin wrote:You know, I wrote that in jest, and not being a horn player, I'm totally clueless about what they can and can't do, but it seems that a capo could be simply and easily made with either an extended mouthpiece, or some sort of insert between the mouthpiece and the rest of the instrument.
Would this be possible? Or if it is, practical?
Actually, no. The reason being that in order to change the key of the instrument, the tubing length would have to be changed quite significantly. For example I can can actually detune my Bb trumpet to A* by pulling the tuning slide almost all the way out - which is approximately 4". What essentially is taking place is that I'm adding approximately 8" of additional tubing to the instrument in order to drop it a mere 1/2 step. Also, what happens now is that you are now severly changing the intonation and response of the instrument. In sum, the only way to change the key of a brass instrument is to add (or subtract) tubing length - and a considerable amount of it.
*ON EDIT:
I should've said that the horn would be detuned to A , not B (there goes that Bb transposing in my head again!)
Last edited by Mark Treepaz on 27 Aug 2009 5:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby David Doggett »
Mark is right. You can "tune" a horn by moving the mouthpiece or a tuning slide. But that only works for about 1/4 step in either direction, 1/2 step at most. Extension of the tube length beyond that will cause the tube length to be too much or too little for the fixed spacing of the key holes or valve tubes to give proper intonation.
If you do a search on horn keys, you will find that some horns are made in keys other than the common traditional ones. Often that is not just to make the fingering easier, but also because you get better tone when the horn better matches the key of the music. You get the same effect on steel. Although you can play the same note on more than one string, it usually sounds better on the string that allows you to play closer to the nut, rather than on the next lower string further up the neck.
Last edited by David Doggett on 26 Aug 2009 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mark and David, thanks for the explanations. I'm sure there are many others here besides me who don't play horns and know little or nothing about them.
David Doggett wrote:... Extension of the tube length beyond that will cause the tube length to be too much or too little for the fixed spacing of the key holes or valve tubes to give proper intonation...
Dave has hit the nail on the head. Changing the length of the tube would be like moving the bridge back on a string instrument. It throws out the fret positions.
My bandleader/songwriter approached me about a new blues tune recently.
He plays piano, but I suggested the key of B, since I was playing guitar.
B for Blues. As in "Red House Blues", the Jimi Hendrix ditty that made me pick up a guitar after trying to play clarinet and alto in junior high. One of my all time favorites.
Though E A B, or A D E, are great keys for guitar blues, it was the B E F# that enabled, what I thought, was a greater use of the entire guitar neck for riffs, while still incorporating those open strings from time to time.
He wrote our tune in that key (B), but wants to change it to something more comfortable on the piano. Hmmm, A capo is in order. ...Wait, he plays a Roland! Should he capo (Transpose = -1) his piano down a notch?
BTW, i still make the dog run away on the alto sax at home by ear, I dont actually know what Im doing, I just pick a note that fits, and jump to the rest. Kinda like my steel guitar style heh.
The late great Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown played in all keys - but he used a capo to allow him to play "E shape" chords... so if the song was in C, his capo was at the 8th fret... in Ab, it was at the 4th fret, etc, etc. A late friend of mine, old-time country guitar player Carl Rutherford, from West Virginia, used the same principle, but he was actually in an E tuning.
Nick
Actually I have a horn that has a "capo". On some of the older cornets, there was a mechanism that allowed you to quickly change the horn from Bb to A. You pull a lever and it adjusts all the tuning valves so it is an A horn instead of a Bb. It is cool but the reason it didn't catch on is that cleaning the horn is a bear: all these parts have to be removed and put back together and it is a difficult job. Most people just ended up taking the mechanism off.
And by the way there are C trumpets as well. And there are sax players that play a C sax.
My trumpet teacher always emphasized being able to play in any key at any speed. You don't want to have to slow down because you can't improvise or play in a certain key. For him, the top speed you practice your scales is the fastest you can play on your worst key, and you slowly build from there.
a good trumpet player should be able to play anything in any key.
It's the same discussion that occurred centuries ago, as to why everything is played in C or Amin. Until fairly recent times ALL instruments were made to play in the key of C. It's no coincidence that keyboard instruments have all the white notes in C or Amin. And I stress Amin. The reason that A is A is because in ancient times minor keys were more prevalent than major keys, and really every instument was designed to play in A min.
There was a time when keyboard instruments ONLY had the white notes. You played in the recognised key of A (i.e. A min.) or C major.
A few years ago they took an ancient Egyptian flute, 5,000 years old, and made an identical replica (since if you played the original it would deteriorate from the humidity of the breath). When played it was in the key of A min.
Remember, that before Equal Temperament became accepted, it was impossible to play in any key other than C or A min. and stay in tune. To this day, humans revert to Natural Temperament in the absence of instruments. An experiment was performed where opera singers were asked to perform classical works without accompaniment. What was found was that they reverted to Natural Temperament in the absence of instruments.
Getting back to the guitar. It's built to play in E or E min. Players playing flamenco, which is a folk idiom, and reliant on natural temperament, and blues, which is also a folk idiom, and also reliant on natural temperament, find the tuning ideal for them. You could tune the guitar higher or lower, but you're limited to the physics of string tension. If you tune higher than standard your strings will break: if you tune lower than standard your strings will rattle.
The other thing to consider is your two bass strings. Ideally, if you're playing the blues you need a bass drone, which on the 6th string is E. Then you need a bass for the subdominant, which is A, and can be found on the 5th string. You also need a bass for the dominant, which is B. That's why many guitarists opt for a 7-string, which has a lower B string. It makes boogie a lot easier to play. Without the low B string you have to jump an octave.
Or (following on from Alan's last paragraph) if you play in A (which I would say is the 2nd most popular key for blues and blues/rock) you have the tonic, sub-dominant and dominant as the bass strings on your regular 6-string guitar.
And all of this relates to why an "E-type" or "A-type" are the two most popular open tunings...
Nick
