Grade 5 ABRSM/Grade 4 Trinity Music Theory - Transposition - Lesson 53

Up until now you have only had to transpose a melody up or down an octave. There are many Orchestral Instruments which are called transposing instruments. This means that they play things at a different pitch to what they read. For example, a French Horn would read the note "E" but be playing an "A" in what we call concert pitch. This all sounds a bit complicated and daunting but if you follow a few simple rules it is not that bad.

Firstly you will be told in the exam how far to transpose the melody for a given transposing instrument (you don't have to work that bit out yourself), for example up a perfect fifth or down a minor third.
Next you need to transpose your key signature. If you were told to transpose everything down a minor 3rd and you were given a key signature of A flat major, you write the key signature a minor third down from A flat, that is F major.

Then simply write each note an interval of a third lower than what you are given. You don't really have to worry about the "minor" bit of minor 3rd, because the key signature should take care of that.
Where there are accidentals - if the given note has been raised or lowered then you need to do the same to the transposed note.

Test yourself on all the topics needed for music theory grades 1-5 with our android app [ Ссылка ]

Listen to MusicOnline UK on
iTunes / Apple Music [ Ссылка ]
Spotify [ Ссылка ] ~~~~~~~~~~~
Join this channel to get access to perks:
[ Ссылка ]

свернуть