Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/113

Rh it is easier to play in keys having a smaller number of sharps and flats, and by transposing the parts to other keys, we can usually get rid of several sharps or flats.

In the case of performers on the clarinet, each player is necessarily provided with two instruments (an A and a B-flat the C clarinet being almost obsolete, and the E-flat being used only in military bands); but in playing upon the brass wind instruments the same instrument may be tuned in various keys, either by means of a tuning slide or by inserting separate shanks or crooks, these latter being merely additional lengths of tubing by the insertion of which the total length of the tube constituting the instrument may be increased, thus throwing its fundamental pitch into a lower key.

In order to gain facility in dealing with transposed parts, the amateur is advised to try his hand at arranging simple music (hymn tunes, folk songs, easy piano pieces, et cetera) for his group of players, transposing the parts for clarinets, cornets, et cetera, into the appropriate keys. In this way he will also get an insight into the mysteries of instrumental combination that cannot be secured in any other way.

The first difficulty that the conductor of an amateur ensemble group usually encounters is that the instruments owned by his players are tuned according to various pitch standards; and he is very likely to find at his first rehearsal that his first-clarinet player has an instrument tuned in "high pitch," i.e., what is commonly known as concert pitch (about one half step above standard), while his second-clarinet player has an instrument in "low pitch," i.e., international, a′ having 435 vibrations per second. (There is also a third pitch which is used by many of the standard symphony orchestras—this pitch being based upon a vibration rate of 440 for a′). If the conductor attempts to have his orchestra perform under these