Orchestration Question 14: Transcribing Key Signatures

Whether or not you should worry about preserving the key signature of your source material when orchestrating - excerpted from "100 Orchestration Tips."
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[@user-ez9is7lb9p]

I think it’s important to remember that for pre 1917 piano music, the more extreme keys did sound slightly less in tune than the more simple ones like c major. There are some great lecture excerpts on KZbin explaining the difference between historical and modern piano tuning, there’s also a great video that plays Chopin’s funeral March (Eb minor) with a modern tuned piano, and the same piano but tuned to how Chopin’s piano was probably tuned. There can be fundamental differences in tones of the keys, but only in select circumstances.

[@sebastianzaczek]

Alex Moss Wasn't that mainly because back then they used a tuning system which i forgot the Name of, where a fifth had a 2:3 frequency ratio, a fourth a 3:4 ratio, a major third a 4:5 ratio etc.? Since now we use equal temperament where each note's ratio to the note a half step above is 1 against the 12th root of 2...

[@ren5718]

a great reminder that sound is not a science.

[@rafexrafexowski4754]

​@@sebastianzaczek That's called just intonation, and it wasn't really ever used on instruments with fixed note pitches like a piano or a woodwind. It is however to this day used in a cappella choirs and purely bowed string instrument ensembles. String players also try to use it as much as possible even when they are playing along, say, a piano by slightly modulating in pitch (this is called intonation and is the reason why the violin is probably the hardest instrument to play). Before we got the valved brass instruments thanks to Berlioz they actually had no valves and could only be played in just intonation using harmonics. Even to this day all harmonics on every instrument that can play them are in just intonation. So no, this wasn't just intonation. The tuning (or really tunings) used before the early 20th century were called well temperaments which added a unique character to every key (called key color).

[@ex_orpheus1166]

French Baroque chamber music was generally set at 392hz.

[@stevehinnenkamp5625]

Great advice as expected from a master gently advised to someone interested. Thank you maestro!

[@christopherravelbell8899]

Always a great learn!

[@caterscarrots3407]

I've always had a tendency to stick to the original key, especially when: a) The key is relatively simple(2 flats to 2 sharps) b) It's in minor and/or c) Full orchestra transcription I tried to orchestrate Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata once and I stuck with the C minor for a reason, and not just that it's the original key. For me at least, going from C minor to A minor is like going from a dramatic state to a neutral emotional void. And I want to avoid that in something as dramatic as the Pathetique Sonata. I was given the suggestion of raising the key up from F minor to A minor when transcribing Beethoven's first piano sonata for string quartet because of the issue of what to do with those octaves in the development section that became too low for the cello to play the lower note of said octaves. Bringing it up to A minor would mean that the lowest octave would be a low C octave, in the cello's range. Again, I didn't do that because once again, that would bring me out of the dramatic state of the sonata, at least for solo piano and I didn't want to risk loosing that drama with the string quartet either. So what did I do instead? I had the upper note of those octaves(like the Bb octave for instance, too low for the cello to play the lower note) played pizzicato when the lower note is too low so that the octave contrast would stay there in a way(contrast would stay, change of octave wouldn't, but it would still feel like it's implied by the pizz. arco alternation).

[@caterscarrots3407]

I am orchestrating the Pathetique sonata and I have already taken into consideration changes in instrumentation. For example. the piccolo is really not needed in the second movement and neither is the tuba, bass clarinet, or contrabassoon. As I go from the second movement to the third movement I plan to add these instruments back in: Piccolo Contrabassoon Tuba So the bass clarinet is really only for the first movement where I have 4 note chords in the bass(and just in case I can't find an orchestra with a bass clarinet, I will write an alternative first bassoon part). I have considered possibly adding harp in the second movement(fits very well into a 4 flat key signature and helps get across the mellow feel). Problem is, I don't know really how to compose for harp. I know it has to not be pianistic but having the harpist just do arpeggios and glissandos(both being musical patterns that I strongly associate with the harp) would be boring. Playing a harp would make things easier when considering harp parts but I have neither the room nor the money for a harp. But anyway, the main thing that made me decide which instruments to take away and which ones to bring back for each movement were actually 3 questions: 1) Is there a lot of high register melody or treble clef octaves? If so I might want to add the piccolo. If not, I might want to take it away and just have maybe a few more difficult flute and clarinet parts instead. 2) Is the movement bass heavy? If it is very much so then the more bass instruments, the better. If it is moderately so, then maybe some low bass(you know, the octave transposing instruments like tuba and contrabassoon) but not too many. If not then, no low bass except for double basses 3) What is the mood? Is it dramatic? If so, then add more brass and woodwinds. Is it mellow? If so, then take away the instruments that would definitely ruin that quality(such as the tuba and piccolo) I assume I am okay here staying with Beethoven's original keys, especially since I'm not involving any vocals. So that would be C minor to Ab major to C minor for the movements and even further variety within each movement(like C minor, Eb major, G minor, E minor, etc. in the first movement, because whatever key a particular passage is in is within the range of 4 flats to 4 sharps. If I were orchestrating a C# major piece, I would definitely change it to D flat major and possibly go even further with the key change, bringing it to something like Eb major. Sorry for the long comment but would you change the keys from those Beethoven used in the original sonata if you were to orchestrate it? And how can I avoid the 2 extremes of harp writing, those being pianistic on the one hand and exclusively arpeggios and glissandos on the other hand to have an interesting but playable harp part?

[@nibblrrr7124]

0:00 OrchestrationOnline on Patreon 0:13 Title 0:33 *Question* 0:44 *Practical Considerations* 0:58 Harp 1:08 Piano 1:30 Winds & Brass 2:03 Range/Tessitura 2:36 *Weighing the Practical Implications* 3:23 Dropping/Raise Pitch by Larger Intervals 4:15 Reasons to Preserve or Change Keys in Transcription 5:05 *Intonation & keys are modern concepts.* 6:06 Theatrical Music 6:22 Revered composers had no compunction about adjusting keys. 7:19 *The Orchestrator's Job / Outro* 7:47 Patrons & Credits

[@music_appreciation]

By the way, regarding what you said about Schubert's Lieder: I agree. Here is Michael Parloff's lecture on the "Winterreise": When he talks about "Good Night," the same song shown in your video, he mentions Schubert's use of D minor and F major, but the recording he plays is transposed down a whole tone (medium voice), so we hear C minor and E flat major.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Very interesting! I myself feel that Schubert had pretty much zero interest in subjective qualities of keys, and based his decisions mostly on how the instrument fit the fingers or the line fit the voice. Also his fascination with free modulation leaps off the page. He may also have based some of his choice of keys on the registers of the pianos of his day, which were far more varied than today's perfected models. Or even simply because a piano key was sticky when he was composing one particular day, so he avoided the key signature in which it might show up a lot! 😀

[@georgiepentch]

Do you know where I could find a recording of the String Quartet after Sonata No. 9 by Beethoven on KZbin?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Hi Bobbie! I've added a link to this video at 6:33. :) Thanks for watching!

[@dalmacietis]

Somewhat related question: why is scordatura, or retuning the strings, so rarely used for string instruments? It could change the more resonant and easy-to-play keys to anything you wanted! Is it just because string players are used to the regular tuning?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Because it's an enormous ask. Imagine having no frets, no keys, nothing but your fingers constantly fine-tuning the pitch of every note while relying on instinct and precise finger positions. Then imagine five centuries of work by instrument builders perfecting their instruments to respond optimally to the tension, resonance, and timbre of the standard tuning. Scordatura throws all that into the rubbish bin. It is not "easy" by any means. It can be fun and playable, but it's always a lot more work if one string's tuning is changed, and then aesthetically difficult if all the strings are tuned proportionally up or down. It's a valid technique, but don't assume that it's a solution to anything.

[@divisix024]

@@OrchestrationOnline But didn't Paganini used it in his Violin Concerto No.1, originally in E flat major but now commonly played in D major?

[@mikeoas]

​@@divisix024 He did ... it made certain passages easier to play as they used open strings (which also made them easier to hear against the orchestra). Mozart also asked his viola soloist to retune their instrument up a semitone for his Sinfonia Concertante in E flat for violin and viola, pretty much for the same reasons as Paganini did for his violin concerto, although most performances on modern instruments do not bother with retuning and actually use the part transposed up a semitone to concert pitch. (The scordatura option is mainly used for historically-informed performances on original instruments.) Outside of concerti, Mahler asks the leader (concertmaster) to retune their violin up a tone for the second movement of his Fourth Symphony. That is almost entirely done to make it sound harsher than usual (appropriate for a "dance of death"): as the part is written mostly in B flat minor (to sound as C minor), it certainly wasn't done to make it easier to play!

[@nilsfrederking62]

...people with absolute pitch might get hurt when a piece they are familiar with is transposed ;-)

[@blake4129]

What is the font at 4:32?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

OldNewspaperTypes. You can get it at dafont.

[@blake4129]

OrchestrationOnline Thank you so much! I am excited to watch your The Planets analysis. Sadly, I’ll have to wait for the 15th since I can’t pay you on Patreon. But anyways, thank you!

[@music_appreciation]

For me, each key has its own characteristics. I believe that Chopin chose his keys wisely to go with the mood of every piece he wrote; in other words, he would not write a piece in 4 flats simply, as Victor Borge would say, "because he had to move 3 times while writing it," but because it sounded best in A flat major or F minor. This is one reason I don't like orchestrations of Chopin's piano music, that it is often transposed for the musicians' convenience. For example, his Mazurka op 50 no 3 is written in C sharp minor, but in the "Chopiniana" orchestration by Alexander Glazunov, it is transposed to D minor so the B flat clarinetists don't have to read 6 sharps all the time. I think this transposition robs the piece of the haunting, foreboding sound of C sharp minor for the more formal, old-fashioned sound of D minor, thus ruining its character.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

I appreciate that you've worked out a logical system of aesthetics for yourself about Chopin's use of keys, and if it works for your then that is fine. But I do have to remind you that his C sharp minor would have sounded a little flat to us on some pianos of his day, if not even as low as C minor. Having played a great many of his works, my impression is that his key choices have more to do with the ability of the hand to not get lost on the keys, than any subjective quality of the key itself. Of course, we're also missing something else, and that is that Romantic piano tuning wasn't precisely even-tempered as it is today - so the quality of keys may have been more in their slight imperfections than in their subjective colours.

[@music_appreciation]

Personally I think that for some reason Chopin's music sounds best in modern A=440 tuning. Maybe his ear was a bit higher than mine, and so he heard A=435, which according to your video was the standard in the Romantic era, in the same way I hear A=440. It's worth mentioning that I have many other reasons to dislike orchestrated Chopin, such as excessive vibrato, re-voicing of chords, the liberties arrangers take with the score, and above all the way the symphony orchestra deprives the music of its intimate quality.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Probably to the average player in England and Central Europe, Chopin's music would have been flatter than we hear it today - while Chopin may have played his own music quite a bit sharper, as the Pleyel pianos he favoured were factory-tuned to A446.

[@music_appreciation]

Then I guess the differences cancel each other out-A=446 on Chopin's own pianos, A=435 on others, so A=440 is right in the middle. What is your opinion of orchestral arrangements of Chopin's music? Do you agree or disagree with the factors I mentioned above as affecting it in a negative way?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

With respect, I think you're missing my point here - which is that the subjectivity of precise intonation standards means that composers themselves didn't have the same notions of keys possessing discreet qualities that we assign them. Rather than different regions ending up averaging out at A440, what it means is that composers everywhere around that time had different notions of what a key meant - if they had any sense of subjective meaning about a key in the first place. Also - forgive me for not mentioning this earlier - but in Chopin's heyday, the general pitch may have been even lower than A435, which was more the preferred pitch by the middle of the century.

[@Xzyum00]

Unless you're using an extremely rare C trombone, then trombones work best in B flat.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Sorry? The standard orchestral tenor trombone is technically in B-flat, but it reads and plays concert pitch. Maybe you are thinking of band instruments.

[@Xzyum00]

Trombones are built in b flat but read in C. That would make them work best in B flat just like a B flat trumpet because of the technique. I can understand the confusion though.

[@filiphauangundersen3228]

I play basstrombone as an amateur and C major is a nice key for me to play in.

[@Xzyum00]

It may well be, I actually like G major the most. However considering the instrument itself is build in B flat, it would for most people play best in B flat major by default. It is true that most if not all instruments can adjust to a key that they don't usually play it if the musician playing it can handle it.

[@FinlayStafford]

@@OrchestrationOnline You put bassoon, oboe, and flute on the sharp side despite them reading concert pitch. Trombones are a little more at home in B flat.

[@hugobouma]

One additional minor caveat when orchestrating a piano piece in a different key than the original: gatekeeping behaviour from pianists.

[@MJE112358132134]

What do you mean by "gatekeeping behaviour from pianists"? Are you just referring to pianists objecting to the key being changed in the arrangement? Thank you.

[@hugobouma]

​@@MJE112358132134 They object to the changed key because it's not what they're used to-to a certain extent that's to be expected. “You changed it, now it sucks” is a valid, if unhelpful opinion. Nitpicking at tempo/voicing/pedaling decisions is also to be expected. However, on more than one occasion I have seen pianists try and justify those in terms of _why this piece should never be orchestrated in the first place._ Kinda like USAmericans on the internet, pianists expect everything to be For Them by default, and have difficulty dealing with anything that isn't.

[@michaeledwards1172]

@@hugobouma I see - that's what you meant by "gatekeeping" - thanks for explaining. If the objecting pianist is referring to these changes being made in a piece not written by them, I suppose you could argue that it's only one opinion, if it's not written in the score (or maybe even if it is?), and therefore no-one else need feel bound by it if it doesn't feel right for them. But if the objections were coming from the composer of the original piano version, would you then put more weight on their opinion, or would you still consider it excessive gatekpeeping?

[@hugobouma]

@@michaeledwards1172 If a piece is still under copyright, the copyright owner has every right to control if and how the piece gets adapted. But this sentiment is strongest close to the core piano repertoire, which is pretty much all in the public domain.

[@sfbirdclub]

You bring up an obvious truism--that pitch is relative. MY PET PEEVE IS....how on earth can people have perfect pitch then? "Oh, I have Kirnberger III perfect pitch, or I have Swiss 15th century monastic organ tuning. Ye gods!!!

[@joshuaschanie4025]

The trombone is a Bb instrument, NOT C

[@OrchestrationOnline]

You've completely missed the entire point of the statement. Concert trombone READS in C major. The standard tenor is built with a B-flat bore, and in some kinds of band music, yes it also reads in B-flat. But this is not BAND ARRANGING Online, this is ORCHESTRATION Online. If you have a correction to offer, please do it in the right context, thanks.

[@sanderdas9401]

@@OrchestrationOnline maybe I understand it wrong, but most modern trombones indeed read in C, but we are built in Bb, so if you say to us play a C, it will sound like a C. But because we're built in Bb the easiest key signature for trombones to play is Bb, not C. The B is 'harder' to play then the Bb because Bb is playable in 1st position in every octave, the pedal B is not playable on the tenor trombone, the low B is playable in 7th position or in 2nd with F attachment and the middle in 4th position. Of couse we can play with other key signatures, it's just not our 'home' key signature

[@sanderdas9401]

This reasoning also applies kinda to french horns as well. They read in F, but the double horn is also built as a Bb instrument. So the 'home' key signature is also Bb major (unless what you mean with the home key signature is the key signature that's written on their part, then it's indeed F major. But then the 'home' key signature for the trumpets has to be C major ...

[@OrchestrationOnline]

@@sanderdas9401 Of course. I know all that and indeed I've taught that as an orchestration coach and I cover these features of trombone construction in my book 100 Orchestration Tips. But once again, this entire video is about whether to transcribe key signatures in orchestration. The diagram that refers to trombone as a C instrument is about READING - not instrument construction. Tubas are also built in a number of different tube lengths corresponding to different keys, and yet they are all C instruments. The reference to "home keys" on some wind instruments mentioned has to do with not the tuning of their tube lengths, but where their fingers sit on the basic fingered scale of the instrument.

[@sanderdas9401]

@@OrchestrationOnline But that doesn't change the fact that trombones rather read in Bb major then in C major