Transposing

Transposing – the ability to change the key of music in your head and play it higher or lower than the original – is one of the skills that defines a really proficient musician. Most professional musicians, both popular 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 song or a piece of music, try transposing it. You soon start to see its pattern features, and this makes it a lot easier to remember.

Transposing is easier than you might think, and younger pupils’ ability to learn to transpose is generally underestimated. The benefit of regular practise in transposing in in terms of general musicality is significant.

(We can all transpose, of course. Whenever we sing or hum or whistle a familiar tune, we probably transpose it from its original key into whatever sounds or feels comfortable, without knowing it.)

The familiar and well-loved Canon chord sequence offers an ideal opportunity for learning to transpose, and Musicarta’s transposing material currently focuses on the Canon chord sequence. The Roman numeral system of naming chords is central to learning to transpose, and is also covered in the Musicarta Canon Project ‘Transposing’ mini-series. Click through here to see the material.

You can also transpose ‘mechanically’ by raising or lowering written music on the lines of the stave, by counting scale tones in the key of the piece, and by using hand position and fingering. The first two of these methods are mentioned briefly in the Canon transposing material.

You can learn transposing quite successfully by just 'going through the motions' – playing short pieces of music first in one key and then in another. A section called 'Playing in other keys', in the Musicarta Blues Piano series Module Seven, Supplement B, shows how you can use MidiPiano to play a MIDI file in another key to develop your transposing skills.

Further advice on transposing and opportunities to exercise your skill will become available as new Musicarta material is posted online. Keep up to date by bookmarking the Musicarta blog page and checking in regularly, or get the Musicarta RSS feed (subscribe here or use the orange RSS button below the navbar, top left) for no-hassle updates. (Not sure about RSS? Click here for a short explanation.)

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