Writing for Instruments & Transposition

This lesson is part of the Style & Compositional Techniques category.

Objectives

• Students will be familiar with the different families of instruments, their members, and their general characteristics.
• Students will understand the concept of transposing instruments and be able transpose a melody for a particular instrument.
• Students will be familiar with string instrument bowing, and be able to notate bowing in a string instrument part.
• Students will be familiar with notation conventions for vocal scores, including proper hyphenation and use of melismas.
• Students will be familiar with percussion notation conventions, including writing for unpitched instruments and drum set.

Class Activities

• Discussion and demonstration of vocal registers and instruments from each family
• Discussion regarding transpiring instruments
• Transposition of a given melody for a particular transposing instrument
• Demonstration of handling transposing instruments in notation software
• Discussion and definition of notation conventions for string, vocal and percussion music
• Viewing and discussing notated music using different instrument-specific conventions
• Addition of bow markings to a given string melody
• Transcription of a vocal melody which includes melismas
• Transcription of a measure of a drum set beat and a one-measure fill

Assignments

• Transposition of a melody for a specified transposing instrument
• Addition of bowing to a given string melody
• Transcription of a recorded drum set beat
• Transcription of a vocal melody