Why do intruments play in different keys?

Answer 1

Many instruments are not in "concert key", aka "C". This is usually when the size and shape of the instrument would make it impractical for it to be in concert key. Using saxophones as an example, the keys alternate based on the size from the B flat soprano sax, to the E flat alto sax, to the B flat Tenor, and finally the baritone sax, which is in E flat.

This creates potential issues for musicians that play these instruments and use sheet music, as they cannot play music written in concert key without having to transpose in their heads, and usually must depend on versions of the sheet music transposed specifically to the key of their instrument.

Answer 2

Earlier answersthey don't i have four separate instrument teachers none have told me that

A B# is a C, not a B flat.

same with me

A More considered answerOK, I teach six instruments, and I do tell some of my students that the notes are something they are not.

Why?:

• Because the music for their instrument, particlularly in ensemble music is written to work with that naming structure (Trumpet, saxes, clarinets, horns, cor-anglais)
• The instrument is built in a different key to where we name the notes (trumpet, saxes, clarinets, horns, cor-anglais)
• The instrument plays an octave lower or higher than it is written (piccolo, guitar, Bass Guitar, double bass)

The second answer is the most correct, as the other two answers follow directly from it.

Take the trumpet as an example of why. Trumpets were initially built in one key. If you wanted to play in a different key you had to have a different trumpet. To write the music out for each different type of trumpet was considered wasteful of time, ink and paper. So it was decided that a trumpeter would only learn one set of notes for reading of music, but use different trumpets to play in the correct key for each piece of music.

Later, someone had the bright idea of bending the tubing of the trumpet into the shape we are more familiar with today. But each trumpet could still only play in one key.

Still later, another bright ideas was to add apiece of tubing that could be removed or changed with another piece of tubing to change the key of the trumpet. The same basic need to read the same notes regardless of the key of the trumpet was still valid.

In the mid 1800's, the last great bright idea was added to the trumpet and several other brass instruments: pistons or valves. these took the idea of the changeable length of tubing and added three lengths of tubing to the trumpet that could be added in by pressing a valve or piston.

The lengths of the tubing dropped the pitch of the trumpet by one half-step, two half-steps or three half-steps in the chromatic scale. By combining the valves you could get up to seven different basic keys for the trumpet: these seven keys gave the trumpeter access to all of the chromatic notes across it's entire range.

By this time, there was so much music written for the instrument that to change the way a trumpeter learnt their notes would mean rewriting a lot of music for orchestras and other groups to play.

Today, we usually see trumpets built in C, D, Bb and A. the Bb trumpet is the most common because it has a good all round tone quality and produces a wide range of notes. The others exist to allow for modern players to play the music that JS Bach wrote for trumpet with D crooks (a crook is the name for a piece of tubing added to the trumpet to change its tuning), to have a brighter more penetrating sound (C trumpets) or to have a darker more sinister sound (A trumpets)