Re: Transposing Keyless Brass Parts

[Jay Anderson]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 2:48 PM, Glassmenagerie <address@hidden> wrote:

Here are a few measures of the 1st trumpet part in F of the 3rd dance of the
Dvorak Slavonic Dances, Op46.  The Bb trumpet player would need to transpose
up 7 intervals on the fly.  There is no key signature.  Quite a challenge
for amateur players.  The concert key starts out in Ab, changes to C at mm.
66, then back to Ab at mm. 110.  I'd like the best way to arrive at the
correct notes and key signature for the Bb trumpet.

The docs are always a good starting point: http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.18/Documentation/notation/displaying-pitches#instrument-transpositions 

Without looking at your example there are a few ways:

1) Write out the notes you want (Frescobaldi can transpose the notes in the source).

2) Use /transpose to move the notes to what you want the players to read.

3) Use /transposition f in conjunction with some auto-transposition libraries: https://github.com/openlilylib/openlilylib/tree/master/editorial-tools/auto-transpose.

I would suggest not using a key signature in either the original or the transposed version for a trumpet part, but if you really want that you could use tags (or the fancy edition engraver that's all the rage these days: https://github.com/openlilylib/edition-engraver).

-----Jay