Transposing the Canon

THE MUSICARTA CANON PROJECT

Transposing the Canon Chord Sequence
- Part One -

The ability to transpose – to change the key of some music in your head and play it higher or lower than the original – is one of the things that defines a really proficient musician. Most professional musicians, both modern and classical, can transpose – some astonishingly well.

You can really only say you know a chord sequence, or a tune, or a riff, when you can transpose it. This works the other way round – if you really want to know a tune, or a riff, or a chord sequence, try transposing it. You soon start to see the relative size of the steps between the notes or chord roots, plus many other pattern features, and this will make it a lot easier to remember.

Younger pupils’ ability to learn to transpose is generally underestimated. The spin-off in terms of skill and progress of regular practise in transposing is significant, if hard to attribute precisely.

To get the most out of these Canon Project Transposing modules, you need to have worked through the main Canon Project series at least as far as Module Seven. If you need to catch up, click through to the Canon Project home page to get started.

The MIDI files for the Canon Transposing series are in a separate folder 'Canon transposing MIDI' which you can download using this link. If you need help downloading and unzipping the folder, see the instructions in the Canon Project Module One 'Preparing to learn (2)' section.

Using the Roman numeral system of naming chords to help in transposing

The Roman numeral system of naming chords

The chords of C major using the Roman numeral system

Now look at the simple chords (triads) we can build on each step of the scale using just the C major scale degrees by playing every other white key. (These chords are named after the lowest note.)

It turns out that some of the chords built from the C major scale tones are major (C, F and G), and some are minor (D minor, E minor and A minor – Dm, Em and Am), depending on whether the middle note – counting in semitones – is closer to the top note or the bottom note of the triad. (One chord, which we ignore for now, is a third type, called the 'diminished'.)

To use the Roman numeral system (RNS) to designate (stand for) the chords, we have to adapt it to show the difference between major and minor chords.

Major and minor chords in the Roman numeral system

• The chords built on the first, fourth and fifth scale degrees are always major (I, IV, V)

• The chords built on the second, third and sixth scale degrees are always minor (ii, ii and vi)

• The triad built on the seventh scale degree is always diminished (indicated by the small circle after the lower case viiº).

Once you've practised using the Roman numeral system for a while, you start to think like this:

“In the key of C (or, in fact, any key), ‘One’ is major (C major), ‘Two’ is minor (D minor), ‘Three’ is minor (E minor), ‘Four’ is major (F major)…”

…and so on. This understanding of ‘key’ is hard to achieve any other way.

The chords of D major in the Roman numeral system

The key chords of D major follow the same major/minor (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi) pattern as every major key. Here’s how they look side by side with the chords of C major.

Transposing the Canon chord sequence into F

Revise the key of F (key signature, Bë), both scale and chords.

Make a transposing table for D major to F major

Listen to and copy the audio/MIDI performance files to make sure you can play the key chords in both keys. You play the eight triads in D, then in F, then in D and in F again.

The Canon chord sequence in D major is:

Read off the Canon chord sequence from the RNS chord symbols in the middle row of the table into Canon-in-F major chords in the bottom row:

The left hand accompaniment in F major

Transposing the right hand parts

Look at our original string of thirds in D major:

The numbers above the notes are neither fingering, nor chords – they are the numbers of the D major scale degrees, counting up from D (here indicated by R for root). Make sure you can see how the numbers relate to the D major scale before going on.

NOTE: ALL the numbers refer to D major scale tones, regardless of what the chord is. Count up from D = R = 1, always.

Here is the same information in the key of F major:

Here are the two versions with the black keys ringed:

Play through the two strings of thirds one after the other. There are far fewer black-key notes in the F major version.

Now put the thirds in F and the accompaniment together:

You might think the treble sounds a bit thin, up so high. Try playing the thirds an octave lower.

There are quite a lot of ‘clashes’ here, where the left hand has to play notes the right hand is already playing (circled in the next example). Use the sustain pedal, if your keyboard has one, and release the right hand notes just in time for the left hand to play them. The MIDI file, played on MidiPiano, shows this clearly. It is quite usual to have to ‘get out of your won way’ like this.

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