Posted by Sean Chisham on December 03, 2001 at 10:09:12:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Romantic era Solos posted by Jay Bertolet on December 02, 2001 at 23:13:29:
Actually, my original statement was simply a reaffirmation of what you had said. You already said that you transpose Eb horn music.
Anytime someone arranges a piece of music, they change it in some way. Many many times, it is in a bad way. Take, for instance the Tuba version of the Arbans which came out a few years ago. It may be useful for beginners to be able to use it, who can only read bass clef, but that edition introduced some mistakes. They altered some many of the etudes to supposedly make them more playable on tuba and left out a lot of the stuff from the back of the trumpet version. The Tuba edition also cost a considerable more than the trumpet version. This may simply be a good argument for reading treble clef, which you already agreed with.
Learning to transpose can save time and money. By learning to read treble clef in F and Eb you can play almost all the horn library and use the original accompanyment. Simply read it in treble clef in C and you will need to rearrange the entire piano part or you would need to rewrite the solo. Either way, it is very possible that things will get changed in the translation/rewrite which were not intended.
If you just want to read great music and not worry about putting it together with accompanyment or other players, then read all the treble clef stuff in C and have fun. If you want to play the Haydn trumpet concerto or Strauss 2nd horn concerto or a clarinet concerto without trying to hunt down an arrangement, then learn to transpose.
sean