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rowuk · 07-09-2008, 04:35 PM

As Vulgano Brother said, the roots are based in early music for trumpet. The trumpeters guilds (like unions) had an iron grip on the working conditions and trumpet parts were transposed. During the baroque period, the trumpet players practically NEVER had to look at a key signature other than C. If the piece was in D you needed a D trumpet. The unions died off after the baroque era and then it was time for the composers to get even. Take Mendelssohn for instance, his charts are written for trumpet in Bb, B, D, D, Eb and E. Trumpet players did not bring cases of instruments to those gigs - they just had to transpose.
In any case, the brass band tradition maintained the Bb notation and that is what we live with today, although trumpet players are starting to bring collections of instruments to every gig again. See how what goes around comes around?

07-09-2008, 04:35 PM	#15 (permalink)
rowuk Moderator Fortissimo User Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 4,572	Re: Why is trumpet music transposed?? As Vulgano Brother said, the roots are based in early music for trumpet. The trumpeters guilds (like unions) had an iron grip on the working conditions and trumpet parts were transposed. During the baroque period, the trumpet players practically NEVER had to look at a key signature other than C. If the piece was in D you needed a D trumpet. The unions died off after the baroque era and then it was time for the composers to get even. Take Mendelssohn for instance, his charts are written for trumpet in Bb, B, D, D, Eb and E. Trumpet players did not bring cases of instruments to those gigs - they just had to transpose. In any case, the brass band tradition maintained the Bb notation and that is what we live with today, although trumpet players are starting to bring collections of instruments to every gig again. See how what goes around comes around? __________________ Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.