Transposing Instruments...?

[Ben Johnson]

Coming from a background in piano, my recent foray into orchestration has led me into some confusion when having to transpose other instruments. When playing a score, do you transpose "mentally," or do you simply transpose on the controller/midi track? The latter is obviously so much easier, but I can't help but feel like I'm cheating.

Any insight?

[stephank]

Hey Ben.

I think, I didn´t got your question right. A midi track is never transposing. It sounds as "written".

Whe you are reading scores, you have have to transpose them in your mind, if they are transposed.

In writing I prefer to write a C-score. Makes things faster and easyer, and in my opinion it has nothing to do with cheating.

But as I said in the beginning: I´m not shure if I got you right.

Best regards, Stephan

[DG]

I never put a transpose on the MIDI track, but occasionally I play it in as written and then transpose it afterwards, particularly if it is an awkward transposition. This also has the advantage that if you want to copy it to another instrument, you don't have to worry about getting it in the correct key.

DG