Transposing sheet music to fit the range of your ocarina

One thing you will run into when playing the ocarina is sheet music that is out of range. A single chambered alto C ocarina can play from about C to F in the second octave (excluding subholes), which in sheet music looks like this:

However, you may run into a piece of music which, as written, has a range of G to C on the second ledger line. Remember that you find the range of a song by scanning through it, looking for the highest and lowest note used.

At first glance, you may think that this song is unplayable. However, it can be played using a technique called 'transposition'. This technique enables you to adjust the pitch of a song to bring it within the range of your instrument.

How does transposition work?

In western music, we divide the octave into 12 equally spaced notes, the distance or 'interval' between any two of which is called a 'semitone'. All semitones have the same tonal character, and together they form the 'chromatic scale'.

Transposition relies on the fact that all scales of a given type (Major, minor, etc.) are formed from the chromatic scale following the same pattern. Major scales, for instance, use the pattern shown below.

Because of this, the different scales are equivalent. We can number the notes of any seven-note diatonic scale (like the Major or minor scales) starting from its tonic, like this:

All you have to do to transpose a melody is to take the notes in one scale and translate them into the equivalent notes in a different scale. It will still sound like the same melody, but at a higher or lower pitch.

The diagram below shows the scale degrees of C major. If you started with a melody in D that starts 'D, F♯, E' and transposed it to C, you'd get the notes 'C, E, D':

Another way to think about this is to move all of the notes in a melody up or down by some number of semitones within the chromatic scale, as demonstrated by the tool below. The transposition slider moves the notes, and you can press the play button to hear the result.

There are several ways to achieve this. First, we'll guide you through the process of manually transposing sheet music so you understand the logic behind it. Then we'll explore some easier ways to achieve the same goal.

How to transpose sheet music by hand

The essential steps involved in transposing music are shifting the notes and adjusting the key signature. In some cases, we will also need to correct accidentals.

Step 1: Find the diatonic interval between the two keys

The first thing we need to do is work out how far to move the notes up or down on the staff. As you know, we have 12 semitones per octave, and we can write them out in a line:

C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯, A, A♯, B

Say that you wanted to transpose a melody up from C to G. If you start on C and count forwards, the distance between these two keys is seven semitones.

But, as you also know, the lines on the staff themselves only represent the 'whole letter' part of these names, unless we use sharps or flats. So, to work out how many staff positions we need to move our notes, we need only consider the diatonic interval:

..., C, D, E, F, G, A, B, ...

And thus, to transpose from C to G, we need only move our notes up by four positions. If the key you want to transpose to has a sharp or flat in the name, it can be ignored:

• The distance we need to move to transpose from C to F, and from C to F♯, is three positions in both cases.
• To transpose from C to C♯, you don't need to move the notes at all!

Step 2: Move the notes on the staff

Once you know the diatonic interval, the second step is to write out the melody again, moving all of the notes up or down by the required number of positions on the staff.

Consider, for instance, this melody:

If you want to transpose it to E major, you need to move all of the notes up by two staff positions like this:

Step 3: Change the key signature

The next step is to change the key signature to the key you are transposing to. You can find all of the key signatures by looking at the circle of fifths, and the key signature for E looks like this:

Note that if the diatonic interval between two scales is zero, you don't need to move the notes at all; all you need to do is change the key signature, such as transposing from C to C♯:

Step 4: Fixing accidentals

If your music contains accidentals in the body of the music, you may need to correct them. As accidentals are not additive, any accidentals that overlap with the key signature will need to be changed.

For instance, if in your source music you had a sharp note that, after transposition, overlaps with a sharp in the key signature, it will need to be changed into a double sharp. Double sharps look like an 'X' and raise the pitch of a note by two semitones.

Similarly, a flat that duplicates a flat in the key signature needs to be replaced with a double flat. Double flats lower the pitch of a note by two semitones.

Other conflicting accidentals will become either sharps, flats, or naturals, depending on the context, and can be determined by considering the note's position within the chromatic scale.

• A flat in the key signature interacting with a sharp in the music will change to a natural.
• A sharp in the key signature interacting with a flat in the music will change to a natural.
• A natural will become a sharp or a flat depending on the context.

In most cases, you'll only need to change accidentals in the music when transposing into a key signature that already uses a lot of accidentals; however, it is worth being aware of this.

An example to try out

Things become easier once you start putting them into practice. Have a go at transposing this tune into a few different keys, both up and down.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

Easier approaches

Software transposition

If you are using a computer notation software like MuseScore, transposing music is a trivial task. All tools of this kind have the facility to transpose music by selecting the new key from a drop-down menu.

If your music is in a computer-readable format like ABC notation or MusicXML, there are also tools to do transposition just as easily, both online and as stand-alone software.

Transposing music at sight

Knowing that all of the scales are based on the same pattern reveals some things that make it easy to transpose music at sight.

If you consider this:

And the same music transposed into C:

Do you notice that the distances between the notes are the same? In both examples:

• The distance from the first to the second note is one staff position.
• Also, the distance from the second to the third and from the third to the fourth note is one staff position.
• The distance from the fourth to the fifth note is two staff positions, etc.

The key to transposing music at sight is to read music using the intervals between notes, rather than their absolute pitches. Let's have a go with the following example:

We can see that the lowest note in the tune is a G. Say that we wanted to transpose it down onto a C ocarina so that the lowest note is C? That can be done like this:

• Start reading from the second line G, but finger low C on your ocarina.
• As the distance between the first and second note is ascending by one staff position, you move up one note on your ocarina (lift the right pinky finger).
• Keep reading using the distances between the notes.

If you follow through with the rest of the notes and read the intervals correctly, the tune will sound correct, transposed to C. It will get easier the more you practice.

The only thing that you need to consider when doing this is the difference in the key signature between your instrument and the sheet music. This is discussed in An easy method of playing ocarinas in different keys.

Closing notes

Transposing music becomes easy with a bit of practice and provides the possibility to play sheet music that you may have thought was out of range. However, it doesn't work in all cases.

Suppose the range of the music is larger than that of the ocarina. In that case, the only options are to use a multichamber ocarina, or alter the music to fit into a smaller range as discussed in Modifying music to fit the ocarina.

Also, note that I intentionally ignored the distinction between major and minor keys in this article, as for the function of transposition, it doesn't matter. The key signatures of relative major and minor scales are the same.