Bill H (from the signature), William Hong (from the address) writes, inter
molto interesting alia:

>I don't know if this is a general trend, or if all other clarinetists in
>a similar position buy the idea.  But based on my friend's word, I'd be
>a little slower to jump to the thought that it would be "progress" to have
>all instruments become non-transposing.

Surely it is not the instrument that transposes, but the composer or
copyist.

My understanding is that different instruments are different sizes and
therefore have different fundamental notes (and - as BH points out -
different timbres).  In order to help players, and save them the trouble of
mentally transposing, the music is transposed so that they can always use
the same fingering for the same notes on the stave.  They get different
notes, but the copyist has transposed the written music, so that, if they
pick up the right instrument, they are the right notes.

I play recorders (badly - but it's fun).  I have three different size
instruments, descants in C, trebles in F, and a tenor in C.  I have tried
a bass (in F) in a pawn shop, but either I lack the knack or it was a
defective instrument.  I couldn't make it speak consistently.  I have to
use different fingerings for C and F instruments.  At first, when I played
the F instruments, I mentally transposed the music up a fourth.  I now have
two different fingerings in my head and do not transpose.

Is the fingering of clarinets more complex than the fingering of recorders?
Could not clarinettists learn to mentally transpose or to store alternative
fingerings? Each of my instruments - picked up in all sorts of ways - have
at least one note which needs to be unconventionally fingered to get the
intonation correct.  I can do it, and I'm just playing round at it.

I suspect that the problem is the kind of inertia which has Britons using
miles and Americans using ounces, while much of the world has converted to
kilometres and grams.  It would not be hard to teach beginning players how
to do it, but established clarinettists, with much more clout than
beginners, do not see why they should change.

Postscript: I have just realised that the descant recorder is a minor
example of a transposing instrument.  Music for the descant recorder is
written an octave lower than the notes it plays.  It was so natural to me
that I had forgotten.

Alan Dudley
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