This is a general historical engraving question. I am re-engraving a score from IMSLP into Dorico (to eventually make a new arrangement). It is Finlandia from 1899, Op.26. This IMSLP score starts with no key sig (i.e. C∆), then changes key to 4b, thus the C-instruments have the new key signature. The Horns still do not show a key sig, however. This has been an item of confusion in the attempt of re-engraving. Since I am not a horn or wind player, transposing instruments are already a bit confusing (they seem to confuse almost everyone anyway).
I saw Dorico has the instrument “Trumpet > F No key sig”. This seems to mimic what the score is doing. Although I don’t fully understand what is going on here or in the original score.
So would someone with historical knowledge and brass/transposing knowledge, describe what is going on?
After I engrave all the parts, should I then change the instrument to a normal “Trumpet F” (i.e., with key sig) to modernize it?
It is common for Horns (less so for Trumpets) to be written without Key Signatures, though the notes are notated as transposed. There is a Horn in F no key sig instrument for this. Dorico handles the (absence of) key signatures perfectly.
The reason horns and trumpets have no key signature is simple, and comes from the days when they had no valves.
In those days, they could only play a handful of notes: bits of the harmonic series. Basically a C major chord, plus, in the top octave most of a C major scale.
So for horn and trumpet players, it was easier to think in terms of, “Play your 5th note”, rather than play a particular pitch.
So horn parts are notated without a key sig. In effect, it’s a series of instructions about which note of the series to play, rather than a specific pitch.
Then, to get different actual notes, they would add crooks to make the horn deeper. The basic ones were F, Eb, and D, I think.
But once they put the crook in, they could forget about it, and just concentrate on playing their 5th note again.
So, from the player’s perspective, a key signature was irrelevant. It’s not how they thought about what they were playing.
Since then (19th c.), horns and trumpets have become chromatic. But the old convention remains.
That’s how I understand things, but I’m not a brass player.
As a brass player, it’s pretty spot on. You might want to add timpanis to the list as well.
Only thing to add is, that there were way more than 3 common tunings, basically any tuning was thinkable, except maybe F#.
Also, some tunings had Alto and Basso (an octave lower than Alto) variants, such as B, B-Flat and A.
But yes, these instruments thought in functional pitches, which also on the other side further strengthened functional harmonic thinking in orchestral music.
It seems to be working, as the inputted music sounds ok so far.
I’m not sure if Dorico implements this as the cleanest way though, as a unique instrument with the same Instrument name. It is still a Trumpet. I expected this type of setting to be a Stave property, to not show key signature for that Stave, for all systems. Switching all the instruments worked, although fiddly, because the new Instruments (i.e. adding the new instrument to each Player) did not distinguish themselves by name, i.e. Trumpet 1-3 were normal trumpets, then adding the “no key sig” trumpet became Trumpet 4 (each time), then I had to be aware to copy my existing music from whatever trumpet into Trumpet 4, then delete the old trumpet, which renumbered all the trumpets as Trumpet 1-3 again, at which time I had to be aware again of which trumpets were which, to repeat the switch for the next trumpet. Then repeat the process again for the Horns 1-4. Now after this new instrumentation Setup, it is indistinguishable from the prior setup (i.e. in Instrument name), other than that the Systems themselves don’t show the key signatures; i.e., I wouldn’t be able to tell the ‘historic’ trumpet from a modern trumpet.
Most likely this awkward changeover operation is unusual since engravers would start out with the correct instrument. Or maybe it could have been easier if the “no key sig” instruments somehow indicated their distinction, in their Instrument Name. Or if it were a property of the Stave (which might not fit the best either, if it is an actual historical instrument which is used as a Change).
At some point of the arrangement process, after ensuring the engraving is 100% accurate, I will start to make modifications to modernize the score, at which time I assume I might change the trumpets back to normal Trumpets (to show a key signature like any sane person would want to see), which will revisit the awkward fiddling of the instruments again.
Instead of adding a new trumpet and copying the music you can next time just directly change the instrument the player is holding. It should remain the music.
@klafkid made the suggestion that I was going to. Just an instrument change in the already-existing list of players will cover the situation, and is far less fiddly. (I’ve done this myself when transcribing an existing score, and not noticing until after set-up that this was a “no key signatures for horns” score.)
And @Pete_the_Musician described the history just right. I will add only that things are changing to some extent, and have been. Forsyth, in his own orchestration book, was urging the use of key signatures for horns as early as 1910, yet other more recent orchestration books warn against their use because horn players are unused to dealing with them. One has to know one’s audience and situation when scoring a new piece (as opposed to transcribing an old one).
My impression is that UK horn players are much more opposed to the use of key signatures (and thus British orchestration books will advise against them as a rule) – yet Benjamin Britten, a master of the orchestra and a very practical musician, always used key signatures for horns in his scores. In musical theater, my area of research, key signatures have long been used for horns (with a couple of exceptions among orchestrators). Again, one has to be aware of all this, and then suit one’s practice to the context.
F trumpet is particularly tricky as depending on era it can refer to either a high F trumpet (associated primarily with the baroque, and especially Bach, to the point they’re sometimes called “Bach Trumpets”). Stuff post 1800 will usually be written for low F trumpet (i.e. same basic pitch as French Horn), but won’t be marked basso.
If you create two Horn players, one with, the other without key sig., is it just a copy and paste to the other, after inputting one of them or are there things to check?
(Then in layout delete whichever you do not want.)
Would this work?
Not in German music (R. Strauss in particular - look at Ein Heldenleben, for example).
The low F Trumpet (sometimes referred to as contra-alto) is often used in Russian compositions. See Glazunov Symphony No.8 or Shostakovich Symphony No.1.
That’s exactly what the “instrument” does. It’s just terminology. In Finale you work with staves and brackets and playback channel assignments; in Dorico instruments and families take care of those things automatically.
I honestly never played a low F trumpet part, even in later romantic music. But I am indeed German, as @rkrentzman pointed out that as an important fact.
This is what I did. With the need to be careful because both instruments are named Trumpet, i.e. the non-key-sig one is not named “Trumpet (*)” or any indication to show it is different than the others.
I now have the request from the conductor, “make me a version which shows the key signature as normal”; this was, kind of, foreshadowed in this process, as-expected. While otherwise working with the original score, however, I need to use the ‘no key sig’ instrument. This makes it more of a Layout option, where I have one score which is ‘condensing+all key sigs’ and one score which is ‘non-condensing with matching no-key-sig to original score’. This is the example where having it be an instrument is awkward.
I think my workaround will be to again add an instrument to each player, so there are both types of horn, and copy-paste all the notes so the parts have the same music, then include only the appropriate instrument in the respective Layout.
It’s really still a job for Setup. You can just change the instrument to show key sigs (very easy). If you need to keep the score the same and have a different part layout, then add the other instrument in setup, duplicate all the music to it, and show one in the score and have a part layout for the other.
What happens if someone uses the player list tokens and is also asked to produce two separate layouts for an instrument (with and without key signatures)?
I’m not completely sure why Dorico is configured to treat key signature / no key signature as two separate instruments, but my initial reaction was the same as @superblonde - this seems to be the question of what’s displayed (i.e. layout) for the given instrument.
Superfluous duplication of music into another part as cut+paste is what Dorico usually tries to avoid, for example how cues work, no extra copy, which means no extra mistakes either. But seems the extra, is the only way here…