Please wait...
Also, most woodwins[2ds and even a bit of brass.
Percussion? I'm Italian - give me a rigid object and place someone within range that needs an "attitude adjustment" and... that's about as close to a percussion instrument that I care to get.
Mandatory Drummer Joke:
How do you tell the drum platform is level?
The drummer is drooling equally out of both sides of his mouth.
Next Mandatory Drummer Joke:
A drummer and a sax player are walking down the street.
The drummer asks the sax player "where are you going?"
The sax player casually responds "to a gig."
To which the drummers asks... "What's a gig?"
Q: Why do guitar players put drumsticks on the dash of their car?
A: So they can park in the handicapped spot.
When my son picked an instrument, he classified them as follows:
Percussion, string, and "spit" instruments.
Given that the natural inclination would be to choose percussion in a boy of that age, my wife had the infinite wisdom to steer him to stringed.
And so he plays the cello instead of the inferior "spit" instruments :-) He still respects them, but somewhat reviles them. I would only hope to be so differentiated and knowledgeable as he is at 12.
I am ascribing my opinions on him a bit as well, as he does not even describe something as "he hates it", but more of an opinion that "it is not his favorite". I like that, and wish I was more like him. Strange how your kids can change your opinion of the world sometimes.
Heh... 'spit' instruments... the kind of instruments I've mostly played.
I can't blame him for giving them that characterization. There does seem to be a lot of spit involved in most of those instruments.
But along with those, what glorious heroic sounds!
**Nothing** in orchestration beats the thrill you can evoke by writing a passage for eight Horns in F, at fortissimo, and indicate "bells open and up" in the horn parts!!
Example: Siegfried's Climb Through The Magic Fire - Siegfried, Act III Scene Transition - absolutely stunning, thrilling, and quite possibly the most "stirring" horn work in all classical music.
Certainly, some of the horns work I've heard evokes strong emotions.
I'm assuming he also refers to woodwinds when he describes 'spit' instruments, as they also generate spit (if in the reeds primarily).
Heh... wind instruments, if you obsess over all the spit, are a tad gross, even if they can sound quite nice.
Sep 16 2014 7:54am from IGnatius T Foobar @uncnsrd (Uncensored)
I want to modify every wind and brass instrument to play in C, dammit.
The major reason I've found for keeping the "transposing instruments" the way they are is to minimize leger lines in the parts and in the score.
This is certainly true for horns/woodwinds in Eb and F, less so for woodwinds and brass in Bb.
And then there is the "nonsense" of writing using the C-cleff for 'cello and some vocal parts. **That** is simply silly.
Interestingly enough, when composing I use an orchestral score and write all instruments to "sound as written."
Once I am all done (except for minor revisions) I then do a part-by-part transposition in the final ("for print") version of the score.
My 4th Symphony was a complete bitch in that respect!! <evil grin>
http://www.netk2ne.net/9-11/fourth-symphony.html
Go visit and have a listen.
I've had to play music written in the C-cleff for bassoon.
On a euphonium.
Which, as it turns out, wasn't as hard as one might think, if you know how to play for treble cleff on a euphonium, since the notes appear in the same place. You just have to wrap your head around the difference in keys.
Still... I would have been frustrated to play that on a bassoon.
Leger lines? If you play tuba, you live in the leger lines. They don't tend to get much by way of transpositions. I expect the same for piccolo.
Leger lines? If you play tuba, you live in the leger lines. They
don't tend to get much by way of transpositions. I expect the same for
piccolo.
That's why they invented 8va and 8sub. Add those, keep the note(s) in the staff, and depend on the player to know "1 octave up" (piccolo) or "1 octave down" (tuba, bass, etc.).
There's also a notation (quite similar to the 8va/8sub notation) to indicate that the entire staff is an ocative higher or lower. Again, it'd be nice if composers used them with piccolos and tubas, but often they don't.
Leger lines? If you play tuba, you live in the leger lines. They don't tend to get much by way of transpositions. I expect the same for piccolo.
If you play piccolo (or as I do, flute) what you end up seeing is a metric crapton of music written in Bb or Eb with "8va" written all over it.
So if you've got a transposing instrument, you get to play in C, F, or G all the time. If you've got a non-transposing instrument, you're playing in flat keys like Bb and Eb all the time.
God forbid you try to add in an instrument that's difficult to play in flat keys (guitar).
God forbid you try to add in an instrument that's difficult to play
in flat keys (guitar).
In my fourth symphony, the Second Part utilizes mandolins. Does that count? :-)
And my Third Symph uses acoustic guitar in one of the movements.