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How To Transpose For A B-Flat Instrument
How To Transpose For A B-Flat Instrument
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The reason behind this is that the clarinet is a transposing instrument, while the flute is not. What does this mean?
When a flute player plays a written C, his/her flute sounds a C.
When a clarinet player plays a written C, his/her clarinet sounds a B-flat.
That's why we say that the clarinet is a transposing instrument in B-flat. To be more accurate, not all clarinets are in B-
flat: clarinets in other keys (in C, in A, in E-flat, just to name a few) also exist, but the B-flat clarinet is by far the most
common variety.
As you may already have guessed, on such an instrument the whole scale gets transposed: a C sounds as a B-Flat, a D
sounds as a C, an E sounds as a D and so on.
You want to play a duet scored for two flutes, but you have a flute and a clarinet.
You have a flute-and-piano score, but you want to play the flute part with a clarinet.
The problem only occurs when you mix different instruments: if you want to play a flute duet with two clarinets, the score
can be played as is.
1. Move all the notes up. Get some blank staff paper. Transcribe all the notes of the part you want to adapt, but
moving all of them up by one degree. Omit all the accidentals (sharps, flats and naturals) for the moment, we will put
them in later.
For example, for
No changes whatsoever are to be made to the rhythms: the durations of the notes must be kept unchanged.
2. Adjust the key signature. Let's say you know the order of sharps (F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#) and flats (Bb, Eb,
Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb) in key signatures.
If the original key signature has no flats, add the next two sharps.
If the original key signature has just one flat, change it to an F# key signature.
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4/12/2019 How to Transpose for a B-flat Instrument | flutetunes.com
If the original key signature has at least two flats, remove the last two flats.
Sounds too complex? If you prefer you can simply use the following chart:
3. Fix any extra accidental. You are almost done! Now you only need to search the original music for extra
accidentals, and to translate them according to the following table:
That's it! Now the part can be played on a B-flat clarinet (or trumpet, or saxophone), and it will sound fine even when
played together with a C instrument like the flute. Remember, the flute must play the original version, not the modified
one!
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