Transposing
The guitar is a transposing instrument apparently. I've tried to research it, but I don't understand what concert pitch is or why people bother writing music an interval up or down from what is actually sounding. Can anyone out there explain this to me?
# 1
When playing the guitar as an accompniment (sp?) to another instrument or singer, it makes sense sometimes to transpose. A capo is used for this. When music is written for piano or some other instrument, no regard is taken to how easily the piece can be played on a guitar. Using a capo many times can be used to fix this. I experienced this while playing in our church choir accompanying the piano and violin. The capo made many difficult songs to play very easy.
Some artists regularly detune their guitar and play in keys like Eb. SRV did this because he liked to use very heavy string guages. Heavy string guages are harder to bend, but this can be alleviated by dropping the tuning down a step.
Here's everything you ever wanted to know about concert pitch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch
The short version, the A above middle C is 440 Hz. Everything else is tuned relative to that.
Some artists regularly detune their guitar and play in keys like Eb. SRV did this because he liked to use very heavy string guages. Heavy string guages are harder to bend, but this can be alleviated by dropping the tuning down a step.
Here's everything you ever wanted to know about concert pitch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch
The short version, the A above middle C is 440 Hz. Everything else is tuned relative to that.
# 2
Originally Posted by: 10194The guitar is a transposing instrument apparently. I've tried to research it, but I don't understand what concert pitch is or why people bother writing music an interval up or down from what is actually sounding. Can anyone out there explain this to me?
Guitar notation is typically written an octave higher than it sounds at concert pitch compared to the piano (and other standard instruments). This means that the guitar is a transposing instrument, because its notes sound one octave lower than they are actually notated on a score.
The reason for this practice is because if the guitar was written on sheet music as actually pitched, then the pitch of middle C would be written in the bass clef! (Second space from the bottom to be precise.) And the bottom string E would be one ledger line below the entire bass clef.
In order to avoid having to read two staves (bass and treble), the music establishment decided to write guitar one octave up. This helps in one sense because rather than have to read two staves (bass and treble) like piano music, guitar is usually only written in treble clef.
The actual concert pitch middle C on a piano is the "industry standard"; and it is written on the "middle C", one ledger line below the treble clef (also one ledger line above bass clef in order to occupy it's very special place in music notation).
However, the piano is better written in two staves not only because it has a much wider pitch range (higher and lower). But more importantly, because it adds clarity to being able to clearly see two separate parts for two separate hands.
Hope this helps!
# 3
If I'm accompanying other musicians on guitar, and the music notates middle C, I should actually play what would be C3 on the piano, right? What about other transposing instruments, like the Bb clarinet? Are they transposed so the music is written in only one clef? It doesn't seem like writing music one step up would make that much of a difference rather or not the music could be written in one staff or the other.
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