Terminology in Music

[iiipopes]

however, if you learn to read bass clef parts in euphonium, those parts are written in c.

Bass clef euph is not in "C". It plays in standard bass clef notated concert pitch. When you see a note, and play the fingerings for the note, the concert pitch comes out, just like on a piano. It plays concert pitch, as opposed to transposed treble clef pitch for those who read treble clef, like the British Brass Band style music.

If you want a horn in "C," then you purchase an instrument where the open valve plays the concert pitch C.

We use Bb instruments, so our open note is Bb, not C. The horn is considered a "Bb" horn, but the music is not C. It is CONCERT PITCH because we adjust our fingerings to play the pitch notated.

Look at the classical trumpet and classical French horn literature. If the parts are not in concert pitch, as are strings, bassoon, flute, oboe, etc., the parts are denominated as to which instrument to play. For example: "trumpet in C" or "trumpet in D" or like the Haydn, "trumpet in Eb." The horn parts are usually "horn in F," although other crooks for other keys were used, especially in Vienna in the classical era. As now, the pitch designation for these instruments is the transposed notation for that particular instrument, just like treble clef brass band instrument notation is transposed, so the open valve note on the instrument is notated "middle C," but the written part is transposed so the particular instrument plays in the key and pitch of the piece being played.

So unless you have a horn whose open valve pitch is C, and it is playing a piece of music that is in a major key but has no flats or sharps in the key signature, namely in the "key of C," YOU DON'T HAVE C. You have concert pitch if the horn fingering the notated note sounds the same as if the piano and strings are playing that note off the same part. Otherwise, you have some sort of transposition.

The only time it is correct to refer to a piece of music in "C" is if the key signature of the piece has no sharps or flats if major, three flats if minor.
The only time it is correct to refer to an instrument in "C" is if the conventional reference point fingering and note for that instrument is concert pitch C. Piano, strings, bassoon, flute and oboe, among others, are not referred to as instruments in "C," they are referred to as concert pitch instruments, because when they play the note notated, that actual pitch is sounded.

[davewerden]

I've learned from experience that sometimes it is better to use "looser" language. In this conversation I could have gone either way - looser or tighter.

We talk about trumpet parts being in Bb, for example, no matter what the key signature of the part, so I referenced BC parts being in C. Excuse me if that is offensive. Honestly...I DO know the difference, and this was not just laziness on my part. It was one of those back-of-my-mind choices that we all make in real time during conversations. What I mean by that is, for example, when I'm talking to someone who is not fluent in English I automatically change words I would normally use, preferring instead words that are not ambiguous if one does not understand our idioms. For a native English speaker that would be less preferable, because the more "ambiguous" word might give the listener a bit more color or insight. I'm sure in our current conversation the original poster would have understood it either way, but sometimes (well, often, really) I enjoy more casual formulations.

[iiipopes]

It is a matter of expressing and describing the music accurately according to conventional pedagogy and nomenclature so that we all are assured of no confusion in conversing between languages. After all, we all still use the Italian names for tempi as set four hundred years ago, and we don't have any problem with expressing tempi.

In the long run, it educates everybody. I still remember when I had to learn all the proper nomenclature, and I am thankful for the teachers who instilled it in me, as now, to adapt Kipling, I can speak to garage rockers and Doctors of Music alike, and play in all kinds of ensembles, expressing myself with clarity and "translation" as required person-to-person in any particular context. But that is the exception. The start of musical dialog is proper expression of conventional nomenclature and pedagogy. And then we can explain what any particular term means so that we may extend the education to and help bring along those on the forum who have consulted the forum to benefit from the education and experience of the more senior members of the forum

[adrian_quince]

You're ascribing more certainty and consensus to musical notation than I've ever seen as a composer or conductor. I see notations all the time that require significant thought. Tempo is one of the biggest offenders in that regard. (Dynamics is the biggest offender in that regard, but my rant on that subject is so voluminous that it would bring Dave's server to its knees.)

The Italian tempi are a general guide, but are sometimes used idiosyncratically (the Moderato at the beginning of Shostakovich 5, which would be nonsensical without the metronome marking of 8th = 76) or seemingly at odds with the musical material. There are the shifts in their meaning between different periods in music. A baroque Adagio would be more equivalent to a modern Largo than a modern Adagio. Even when they make sense, it's still a judgement call as to how fast a particular marking should be. I've seen pieces meant to go 120 and 152 both marked plainly "Allegro". It took other work (studying scholarship on the pieces, listening to recordings, thinking about how different lines would work on different instruments) to figure out what exact tempo to take the piece.

In fact, I would stake out the opposite position on tempo: Without further context, the Italian tempo markings are not sufficient to perform the work at the composer's intended tempo.

My day job is in software development. There's one thing you learn very quickly about human language when turning ideas into working code: unless designed to be explicitly unambiguous, language will always have ambiguity. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "but I meant..." come out of someone's mouth when discussing a system requirement, I'd have an Adams or two to go with my Kanstul. Caught at the wrong time, the ambiguities can cost IT shops thousands (occasionally millions) of dollars in rework.

On the original subject, I've seen multiple European publishers put out parts for C Trombone and C Euphonium (to distinguish them from parts transposed into B-flat). Pedagogically speaking, I can agree that it's not the most precise technical description, but the meaning is readily apparent. On this part, written C sounds C, as opposed to written C sounding B-flat. Likewise, I've seen modern wind ensemble scores indicate both "Concert Pitch Score" or "Score in C".

While we're on the subject, what makes a modern B-flat Clarinet a B-flat Clarinet anyway? It's not like the natural resonating frequency of the closed tube is a B-flat, as on the brass. The lowest note on the B-flat Clarinet is a concert D. It's not the placement of the break, which is between concert A-flat and A. With the way the modern clarinet developed, there is nothing inherently B-flat about it at all. Its identity of being in B-flat comes from the way in which the six open holes in the fingering system align to the baroque clarinet in B-flat, which had a little brother in concert pitch that sounded a whole step higher. But both of those clarinets had little to justify their pitch centers, either. The clarino register of these instruments does line up (roughly) with the basic fingering pattern of a recorder, but the chalmeau register is a fifth too low.

The transpositions of the modern clarinet family have no physical relevance, only a historical one to an instrument long abandoned. The notation convention for clarinet does have one distinguishing feature from an information presentation perspective: it puts the break between the chalmeau and the clarino registers at the precise middle of the treble clef staff. This is convenient for those reading the part in that it ensures there are not too many leger lines in either direction. Incidentally, this is why I strongly prefer to read euphonium parts in treble clef and tenor trombone parts in tenor clef.

In the end, this is what transposition really comes down to: convenience. In the brass world, it's to align fingering systems based on the fundamental pitch of the instrument. In the woodwind world, it's to align fingering systems with a nominal center that usually has nothing to do with the fundamental pitch of the instrument.

It's laudable to try and distinguish the key of the work from the key of the part, but the reality I've seen is that publishers are putting out parts using the exact same convention you're condemning here. Coming from a formalist point of view, I would view it as wrong. Coming from a utilitarian point of view, it's much more useful to know that "_____ in C" at the top of a page is referring to a concert pitch part, regardless of pedagogical correctness.

[ghmerrill]

Stick with me on this. It's a little long, but I think worth it ...

While I have great sympathy and respect for iiipopes' commitment to absolute precision in expression and communication, I do feel that his overall model of natural language meaning and content is not entirely accurate and involves a number of simplifying assumptions. Formal language can be made to be devoid of ambiguity and vaguness. Natural languages -- including technical or quasi-technical extensions of them -- cannot (without making them into formal languages, and then they're literally different languages). But enough of the language lecture.

Iiipopes expresses with great certainty and indignation that

Bass clef euph is not in "C"!!!!
It plays in standard bass clef notated concert pitch. When you see a note, and play the fingerings for the note, the concert pitch comes out, just like on a piano.

Really? Let's see.

I am now -- as I type these words -- looking at a band arrangement of Sway (by Pablo Beltran Ruiz and Luis Demetrio Traconis Molina, arranged for band by Andrea Ravizza). I'm looking at the euphonium parts. I'm looking at a euphonium part in bass clef. It is in the key of C major. If I play this part, and play the notes in it as written, then will my sounds come out in concert pitch "just like on a piano"? Well, yes, in a straightforward sense they will. The first note is an E in the staff. So when I play this E, it comes out as n E, right? Right. Will it sound appropriately in the context of the other instrumental parts? Hold that thought.

Oh, wait ... I'm looking at ANOTHER Euphonium part in this same arrangement. It's bass clef. It's in the key of Bb major. Since it's a bass clef euphonium part, then when I play the notes they'll come out in concert pitches. The first note is a D in the bass clef staff. So when I play this on my euphonium, it comes out as a D in concert pitch, right? Right. Must be. Still sticking with iiipopes' principle that euphonium in bass clef is notated in concert pitch.

But wait ... A D natural against an E natural in two euphonium parts in the same arrangement? That will sound a bit weird, no? Something's funny here.

We look more closely and see that the first (C major) part is notated as "Bb Euphonium / Bb Baritone". And of course, it's bass clef. And we all are playing Bb euphoniums, right? Right. So we're good?

The second (Bb major) part is notated as "C Euphonium / C Baritone / Bassoon". There may be a clue here, eh? Maybe we should look at the parts of the other instruments. When we do, we see that Sway is in fact written in the key of Bb major.

So the first conclusion here is that ONE of these BASS CLEF EUPHONIUM parts is written for a TRANSPOSING INSTRUMENT (the "Bb euphonium"), and the OTHER one is written for a NON-TRANSPOSING INSTRUMENT (the "C Euphonium"). There's nothing wrong with this, and we're seeing it a lot more in band arrangements, particularly those from European publishers or in pieces intended for international markets.

And let's ask "If bass clef euphonium is not in C, then why is it that there is this widely employed convention for notating different bass clef euphonium parts, where the one notated as 'C Euphonium' is the "right" one for us to use?" "Right" in the sense that all of us bass clef (non-transposing) euphonium players should be playing THAT part and not the other. Which means that we need to be playing that part on C euphoniums. This at least is the view of the arranger and the publisher -- and not someone who's confused about music notation, nomenclature, or concepts.

Now there are a couple of different answers to this question that can be given in disambiguating what "in C" means. I won't get into them here, and they're pretty obvious if somewhat meticulous, painful, and lengthy to lay out. But one thing that such a situation (i.e., a wide-spread sensible and meaningful convention used by music editors and publishers) suggests is that righteously proclaiming that "Bass clef euph is not in C" may just possibly be incorrect in a straightforward sense, may definitely be pedantic to a degree that's unhelpful, and may ironically expose exactly the sort of error in imprecision that it's seeking to illustrate and avoid.

Just a thought.

[iiipopes]

By convention, we call most brass instruments by their open pitch, and it has nothing to do with how that instrument plays the music. This is especially true for those of us who play tuba. Tubas can come in any pitch, usually a choice of BBb, CC, (which actually should be called a C tuba because of how we arbitrarily assign octave designations, but it is called CC to distinguish it as a contrabass instrument and differentiate it from the archaic French C tuba - which looks more like a euphonium) Eb or F. Most tuba music is written in standard bass clef concert pitch notation. So when we see a mid-line D, for example, a BBb tuba will play it open or 1+2, depending on the relative intonation of the particular horn's fifth partial characteristics, a CC tuba will play the same note 1st valve, an Eb tuba will play the same note 2nd valve, and an F tuba will play the same note 1+2 or 3 alone, again depending on the relative intonation characteristics of the particular instrument.

So it is even more important to be precise and call the notation standard bass clef concert pitch instead of anything else arbitrarily, especially when it can get confusing as to whether a player is talking about an instrument, the music, or both. Therein lay the true source of possible confusion, not the usage of precise and well defined nomenclature.

[ghmerrill]

While we're on the subject, what makes a modern B-flat Clarinet a B-flat Clarinet anyway? It's not like the natural resonating frequency of the closed tube is a B-flat, as on the brass. The lowest note on the B-flat Clarinet is a concert D. It's not the placement of the break, which is between concert A-flat and A. With the way the modern clarinet developed, there is nothing inherently B-flat about it at all.

The case is even worse (or, for the purposes of illustration, better) in the case of the "C flute" in which neither the open instrument nor the "closed" instrument blows a concert C. Similarly for the other woodwinds, including such atrocities as the "C melody" saxophone (designed specifically so that it could be used to read off the treble clef part of a piano score without transposing). There seems to be a long-standing and widely understood convention that the 'C' in such cases really means that the instrument is non-transposing and plays in concert ('C') pitch.

Under such a convention, saying that something is a "C instrument" is hardly harmful.

[adrian_quince]

By convention, we call most brass instruments by their open pitch, and it has nothing to do with how that instrument plays the music. This is especially true for those of us who play tuba. Tubas can come in any pitch, usually a choice of BBb, CC, (which actually should be called a C tuba because of how we arbitrarily assign octave designations, but it is called CC to distinguish it as a contrabass instrument and differentiate it from the archaic French C tuba - which looks more like a euphonium) Eb or F. Most tuba music is written in standard bass clef concert pitch notation. So when we see a mid-line D, for example, a BBb tuba will play it open or 1+2, depending on the relative intonation of the particular horn's fifth partial characteristics, a CC tuba will play the same note 1st valve, an Eb tuba will play the same note 2nd valve, and an F tuba will play the same note 1+2 or 3 alone, again depending on the relative intonation characteristics of the particular instrument.

So it is even more important to be precise and call the notation standard bass clef concert pitch instead of anything else arbitrarily, especially when it can get confusing as to whether a player is talking about an instrument, the music, or both. Therein lay the true source of possible confusion, not the usage of precise and well defined nomenclature.

By American convention, tubas play concert pitch regardless of the key of the instrument. In Europe, this is not the case. Music from publishers there usually contains six separate tuba parts. Three in treble clef, labeled as being in Bb, C, and Eb, and three in bass clef, also labeled as being in Bb, C, and Eb. The Bb and Eb parts in each clef are transposing parts.

Is a convention used by publishers and understood by an entire continent full of tuba players wrong?

[ghmerrill]

So it is even more important to be precise and call the notation standard bass clef concert pitch instead of anything else arbitrarily, especially when it can get confusing as to whether a player is talking about an instrument, the music, or both. Therein lay the true source of possible confusion, not the usage of precise and well defined nomenclature.

I'm missing the "true source of possible confusion" here. Any such confusions are pretty easily disambiguated, and ANY convention will give rise to some confusions. And there are trade-offs (as most everyone else is arguing here) between confusions induced by a degree of informality in adopting a particular convention, and confusions induced by adopting an alternative convention that is repeatedly more difficult to explicate to those not steeped in the formal nuances. Your view is that your preferred convention is the RIGHT one, and others are not merely "wrong" but dangerous (and probably immoral as well). But that just isn't so.

If you were writing a paper in a peer-reviewed academic context, then there are strong arguments for adopting the particular convention you favor. But if your goal is to communicate with a broad audience of diverse readers and players, in a less formal context, and without assuming a degree of prior knowledge, that same convention can be counter-productive. And it can be wise to avoid it even in pedantic contexts if your goal is easy readability and quick understanding.

There really isn't a substantive difference in this "dispute". And your "opponents" really do understand what you accuse them of not understanding. They acknowledge your substantive points. What they don't acknowledge is the "my way or the highway" approach to adopting one convention over another -- particularly in a situation where there are conflicting conventions and good reasons to recommend each of them.

This isn't a dispute about pitches and instruments and keys. There's no dispute about the facts. It's a dispute about what convention to adopt in expressing certain things in certain contexts -- or whether there is one convention that MUST be adopted to the exclusion of others. It's one thing to say "I prefer this convention and recommend it to you for the following reasons." It's quite another to suggest that any alternative convention would be employed only by the ignorant or confused.

In such cases, it is well to heed what is referred to as Carnap's Principle of Tolerance:

Let us be cautious in making assertions and critical in examining them, but tolerant in permitting linguistic forms. (Rudolf Carnap, "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology")

[iiipopes]

By American convention, tubas play concert pitch regardless of the key of the instrument. In Europe, this is not the case. Music from publishers there usually contains six separate tuba parts. Three in treble clef, labeled as being in Bb, C, and Eb, and three in bass clef, also labeled as being in Bb, C, and Eb. The Bb and Eb parts in each clef are transposing parts.

Is a convention used by publishers and understood by an entire continent full of tuba players wrong?

Now THERE is a person that uses the nomenclature properly. Thanks!!!

[JTJ]

I was taught it refers to what pitch is played in response to a written C on the page. That is, a euphonium in C plays (no matter the clef) a concert C when seeing a written C;a tuba in E flat plays an E flat when reading a written C, and so on. That understanding works when, for example, when I've seen some European bass clef parts notated euphonium in B flat and the euphonium is expected to play a B flat when the written note in bass clef is C.

[highpitch]

I'm so glad my horn plays in 'H' flat, just a bit above 'G'....

DDG

[adrian_quince]

This whole debate started off when Dave used the term "in C" to refer to untransposed music. My point is that pretty much all of Europe does just that. A "Bass in C" part from a European publisher is not calling for a specific type of tuba. It is only informing the player that the part is in concert pitch. I see "Score in C" quite often to refer to concert pitch scores in both American and European music. Since it's an entire score, it surely cannot be calling for all the instruments to be in C.

Now, I can understand wanting precision and clarity on music issues where such exists, but it's just not the case here. The use of "____ in C" to refer to something being untransposed is prevalent enough on both sides of the Atlantic I see no room to condemn it as incorrect. Imprecise, maybe. Annoying to some, possibly. But it's simply too common a convention to go either ignored or condemned.

[RickF]

Here here! Well said Adrian.

[jkircoff]

I've been playing music all my life and I still don't understand half of the Italian words used in sheet music.