List of Horn Techniques - Transposition

Transposition

Many older pieces for horn were written for a horn not keyed in F as is standard today. As a result a requirement for modern orchestra hornists is to be able to read music directly in these keys. This is most commonly done by transposing the music on the fly into F. A reliable way to transpose is to liken the written notes (which rarely deviate from written C, D,E, and G) to their counterparts in the scale the F horn will be playing in. Basically all you need to do if you would like to transpose from a major or minor scale is take 5 half steps down from the fist note of the scale on which you would like to transpose. This means that if you would like to play an b flat major, you will play an F scale because it is 5 half steps down.

Commonly seen transpositions include:

• B♭ alto — up a perfect fourth
• A — up a major third
• G — up a major second
• E — down a minor second
• E♭ — down a major second
• D — down a minor third
• C — down a perfect fourth
• B♭ basso — down a perfect fifth

Some less common transpositions include:

• A♭ alto — up a minor third
• F♯ — up a minor second
• Db — down a major third (used in some works by Berlioz, Verdi and Strauss)
• B — down a tritone (used by Brahms and Schumann)
• A basso — down a minor sixth (used in some works by Verdi)
• A♭ basso — down a major sixth (used in some works by Verdi)
• G basso — down a minor seventh (used in some works by Verdi)

It has been speculated that one of the reasons Brahms wrote for horn in the awkward key of B(♮) was to encourage the horn players to use the natural horn; he did not like the sound of the new valved horns.