Chapter XI: The Teaching of Transposition

A great many musical people will not take up the subject of transposition seriously, because they have no idea of the lines along which to work. They all agree that the knowledge would be most useful to them, especially from the point of view of song accompaniment, but the path seems to be beset by so many difficulties, and the results of their first attempts are so pitifully small, that they generally give up all hope, and all effort. Then again, some of the books published on the subject are not very helpful to the average student. Some of them seem to start with the assumption that the student is very musical, and can do a great deal by instinct. They therefore give only the roughest directions. Others begin sensibly enough, but leave out so many steps in the work that a student may be forgiven for throwing them aside in despair.

Now there are three chief reasons why the musician would do well to study transposition:

1. For the purpose of song accompaniment.

2. As an aid to committing music to memory, especially that written in a form where different keys are used for the presentment of the same material.

3. As an infallible test of a sound 'general' musical education.

The last reason is not often advocated, but a little thought will show that it is impossible for the average student, not specially gifted in any way, to transpose even an easy piece of music at sight on the piano, without proving the possession of a trained ear and a knowledge of practical harmony. For class work with children it can be made a still more valuable test of progress. For the average child will be quite unable to transpose a simple ear test--such as _d f m l s t, d_--on the piano, from one key to another, say a fifth away, without a good deal of accurate knowledge.

The first exercises in transposition will be very simple--any child of seven or eight years old, who can sing at sight, and take down ear tests, in the keys of C and G major, can be expected to do them. They consist in:

1. Singing any well-known hymn-tune, or simple melody of the Folk Song type, using the Sol-fa names of the notes. It should be sung phrase by phrase, until every child in the class is sure of the correct notes.

2. The children should now go in turn to the piano, and each play a phrase of the melody, first in C major, then in G.

It is important to emphasize the fact that the tune must be well known to them, or an extra difficulty will be introduced.

As the children learn more and more keys, these tunes should be transposed into them.

Provided the class does not consist of picked musical children, there will always be a few in it who do not learn the piano. This work will be one of their opportunities for learning a little about it. Interesting results have been obtained from such children, if the teacher is enthusiastic and ready to help.

By the time that the class has begun the study of three-part chords the transposition will become more and more interesting, as sequences of chords can now be transposed. When the first steps in extemporizing on the piano are begun, the transposition advances by leaps and bounds. The children will be delighted to play their little tonic and dominant accompaniments in every key--to change from major to tonic minor by flattening the third and sometimes the sixth of the scale.

There is a sense of freedom and power in such work, to which the class will readily respond. They soon realize that certain melodies 'only sound nice' in such and such a key, and in this way the foundation of a 'colour sense' will be laid. Also, apart from the question of the key in which a melody sounds best to a child, another point comes into notice. The child cannot sing certain notes in certain melodies unless it keeps within a certain range of keys. This teaches them something. The point has been referred to in the preceding chapter.

Altogether it will be seen that the study of transposition is opening a new window for them into the fairyland of music.

Later on, when a child can compose short harmonized tunes of its own, it is well to hold up the ideal of being able to transpose them into any key, and in certain cases, where the melody lends itself to the treatment, from major to minor, and vice versa. This work must of course be voluntary, but a child is well rewarded when it finds that it is only the first step which costs, and that the second of such tunes is so much easier to transpose than the first!

And the time comes when a child will sit down to the piano, and will extemporize quite happily either in F major or in F[#] major, whichever is suggested. Such work is well worth any initial trouble taken--it is a combined process of ear and mind which has a far-reaching educational effect.

The last stage of all in this work consists in transposing at sight from the printed page. Hitherto the ear and the mind have been chiefly employed, but now the _eye_ must be trained to do its share.

It is found useful to make children say the names of the chords aloud when they are beginning this sort of transposition. The habit sets up a connecting link between the various faculties in use, in some curious way. The eye can help by noting the intervals between successive notes in the various parts, and especially in the outer parts. It sees the general drift of the piece before the mind comes into play--the coming modulations and so on. In fact, it is not too much to say that it is best, in certain musical phrases, to rely on the eye alone, e.g. rapid decorative passages, which are not always easy to analyse at first sight.

A word of warning must now be given. Those who attempt 'short cuts' in this work will certainly come to grief, unless they are born with the faculty--undoubtedly possessed by a few--of being able to transpose by a sort of instinct. Such people are fortunate, but it is not our present task to attempt to guide them. We are concerned with the average child, taught in fairly large classes, in the ordinary school curriculum, and with only a very limited amount of time at our disposal.