Qué son los instrumentos transpositores - Lección 7-1

In this tutorial, we'll cover a very important concept for saxophonists and other wind instruments: what transposing instruments are. You'll find this free course on learning to play the sax on the La Escuela de Música website at this link: http://laescuelademusica.net/ Due to the manufacturing process and for technical reasons, several wind instruments have been designed to be transposing. This means that the note they play is different from the written note; in other words, it's transposed. This applies to several wind instruments, such as saxophones, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, and so on, which are also transposing instruments. If we take the tenor sax, for example, and play the note C, we'll find that for a pianist, this note is actually B-flat. The same will happen with all the other notes we play on the tenor sax. These notes are transposed one tone down, which is why it's called a transposing instrument. If we play an A on the tenor sax, the note that will sound will actually be a G. If we play a B-flat, the note that will sound will actually be an A-flat. And so on with all the notes. That's why we call the tenor sax a B-flat transposing instrument. On the other hand, if we play the bottom note on the alto sax, we'll find that for a pianist this note is an E-flat. Of course, it will be that same note for any other non-transposing instrument. For example, a flute, a guitar, a violin, etc. The alto sax is therefore an E-flat transposing instrument. The tenor sax and soprano sax are B-flat transposing instruments. The alto sax and baritone sax are E-flat transposing instruments. The trumpet and trombone are B-flat transposing instruments. We'll need to check the transposition for each instrument if we need to work with them. For this reason, these instruments will need to have an adapted score. This means it won't be written in the same key as for other instruments. If we didn't, the result would be that we'd be playing in different keys. Therefore, the interpretation would be incorrect. In this tutorial, I'll explain what transposing instruments are; I hope this concept is clear.