The_Complete_Idiot%27s_Guide_To_Music_Theory
The_Complete_Idiot%27s_Guide_To_Music_Theory
The_Complete_Idiot%27s_Guide_To_Music_Theory
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178<br />
Part 4: Accompanying<br />
Definition<br />
Concert key or<br />
concert pitch is the underlying<br />
key of a piece of<br />
music—that is, the actual<br />
pitches that sound when<br />
played. <strong>The</strong> piano is<br />
always in concert key.<br />
When you transpose a note or a melody or a chord, you take it from one key,<br />
and instead play the equivalent note, melody, or chord in another key.<br />
For example, let’s say you’re playing the note C in the key of C—the key’s tonic<br />
note. When you transpose that note to the key of F, you now play an F—which<br />
is the tonic note for the key of F.<br />
Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?<br />
Let’s look at a more complex example: Let’s say you’re in the key of C and you<br />
play a melody that moves from C to D to E—the first three notes of the C<br />
Major scale. When you transpose that melody to the key of F, the new notes<br />
(the first three notes of the F Major scale) are F, G, A.<br />
Getting the hang of it yet?<br />
Here’s another example: Let’s say you’re in the key of C, and you’re playing the<br />
I-vi-IV-V chord progression—C-Am-F-G. When you transpose that chord progression<br />
into the key of F, the new chords are F-Dm-B♭-C. It’s still I-vi-IV-V;<br />
just in a different key.<br />
You can transpose from any one key to any other key. That means you could<br />
move the notes anywhere from a half step to a major seventh up or down from<br />
where you started. (You also can move notes up or down by whole octaves—<br />
what is called octave transposition—but you’re really not altering any notes;<br />
you’re just changing octaves.)<br />
Why You Need to Transpose<br />
As you saw in the introduction to this chapter, there are many different reasons<br />
you might need to transpose a song. Here are some of the most common:<br />
◆ <strong>The</strong> song, as written, is out of the range of a vocalist or instrumentalist. If<br />
a singer can’t hit the high notes in the key of C, maybe the key of B or B♭,<br />
or even A might be friendlier.<br />
◆ You or another musician don’t know how to play the song in the given<br />
key. This is especially a problem with beginning guitarists who don’t<br />
always know the chords in some of the more extreme flat or sharp keys—<br />
but they do know the chords for G and A and C and F. If you can transpose<br />
the song to one of these keys, everyone can play their parts. (You<br />
have the same problem with any instrument that has to deal with a lot of<br />
sharps and flats in the key signature; it’s easier to play in C, G, D, F, and<br />
B♭ than it is to play in the other, more complex, keys.)<br />
◆ You’re writing or arranging for one of the many instruments that don’t<br />
play in what we call concert key. For example, trumpets always sound one<br />
whole note lower than what is written—so you have to transpose all trumpet<br />
players’ music up a step so they’ll be in the same key as the other<br />
musicians. (So if the concert key is C, you write the trumpet part in D;<br />
when a trumpet plays a D, it actually sounds as concert C.) <strong>The</strong>se instruments<br />
are called transposing instruments, because you have to transpose<br />
their parts for them.