Material on Transposition

[Muir, Pauline Elaine]

Hello All,

I’m also on the search for material. My Phd thesis is looking music in a black majority Pentecostal church in South East London.  One of the aspects that I’m interested in – is the use of transposition in congregational singing – the practise whereby choruses are transposed up a tone on repetition. Has anyone come across any material on transposition generally it doesn’t any to be in a church setting. I would be very grateful for any input on this.

Best Regards

PS I should also say how useful I found the posts in this group

 

Pauline Muir
Course Director
B.A. (Hons) Arts Management

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[Duncan Vinson]

I'm not sure if you mean "how-to" material on transposition or historical/critical interpretations of it. For how-to material, I've made good use of the study guide the American Guild of Organists publishes for its qualifying exams. I'm not sure if this would be available to you in the UK, but I can copy the relevant chapter for you if not.

For historical/critical interpretations, I'm not aware of a single article treating the topic, though I'm sure it is out there. Speaking from personal experience, in the churches I have worked in (probably labeled "Nonconformist" but not "Pentecostal" in a UK context, e.g. Congregational and Methodist), I have found ambivalence about this practice of transposition. Some people in my choir specifically ask me to do this on hymns, while others don't like it. Anthems published by certain publishers (like Hope or Lorenz) seem to do the upward transposition almost as a matter of course, while other publishers stay away from it. I'm sure there is a good study waiting to be made of this phenomenon, but I haven't made it.

Also I am reminded of something in one of the standard organ textbooks, "Handbook of Organ Playing" by Harold Gleason. I don't have it in front of me and can't check the wording, but he has an arch comment about upward transposition of the last verse and calls it something like "vulgar and unnecessary."

Best wishes,

Duncan

--
Duncan Vinson, PhD - educator and church musician
Director of Music, First Congregational Church, Melrose, Massachusetts
duncan...@gmail.com
http://duncanvinson.blogspot.com

[Allan...@surrey.ac.uk]

I don't know how relevant this might be, but shifting up (normally by a semitone), often (but not only) for the last repeat of a song chorus, has been a common technique in a variety of pop & rock music since the 1950s (it may even start with doo-wop, but that's only a guess ... erm, hypothesis!). Amongst musicians its often known as the 'truck-drivers' shift', by analogy with crashing the gears (i.e. the move made without any tonal preparation). Walter Everett mentions it in his 'The Foundations of Rock', e.g. pp. 283-4, although we differ on our understanding of the term's connotations. Then again, Walt's working from a US perspective, I'm working from a UK one. That's probably not insignificant.

Allan

Professor Allan F. Moore
Dept of Music & Sound Recording
University of Surrey
GUILDFORD GU2 7XH
http://www2.surrey.ac.uk/msr/
http://www.allanfmoore.org.uk
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PMU

http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=10918&edition_id=14877

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[Muir, Pauline Elaine]

Hello All,

 

Many thanks to the abundance of response thus far – all really useful information to explore further. I am less interested in the ‘how to’ even though I will also follow up these suggestions, (Duncan – I will see if I can access the text that you mentioned from the British Library) My key focus will be on critical aspects such as why, where and possible impacts.

 

Many thanks

 

 

 

Pauline Muir
Course Director
B.A. (Hons) Arts Management

Any queries regarding LSBU Email should be sent to ICTe...@lsbu.ac.uk or you can check our web site at www.lsbu.ac.uk/ict/email/ for up to date information about this service.

[Ian Mann]

Hi Pauline,

Greetings from DMU, Leicester!

Just picked up your thread and thought I might offer some comments.

I would normally use the word transpose when changing a whole song from one key to another before it is played/sung, this would be done for example when the worship leader or congregation were not comfortable singing a song in the original key. The mechanism of moving between keys during the singing of the song is known as modulation which is covered extensively in most music theory books and might yield more success when you are looking for texts.

Then there is the historical context, classical composers have used key changes to develop the narrative structure of their music. You may particularly want to look at sonata form or fugues as an example of this.

The other area to explore is music and emotion. I personally have not found a single text that covers this in detail . There are lots of titles about music, psychology, the brain and emotion which have snippets of information - there is a little in Emotion and meaning in music / by Leonard B. Meyer. Most of what I have read put modulation in with other compositional/performance tools, such as orchestration etc, with the purpose of providing focal points/emphasis which takes the listener on an interesting journey that engages them throughout.

I use a book called "writing music for hit songs" by Jai Josefs which has a chapter on modulation, which may be considered a little lightweight but I find useful.

Some comments from Prof. Wayne Naus (Berklee college of music) re: key changes and emotions with practical examples. 

http://www.berklee.edu/bt/192/lesson.html

Check out some more pop music examples on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6EQnuH6gvQ

A bbc feature on key changes in the eurovision song contest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30m7NUAWB54&feature=related

I can also remember a song that parodied key changes, i think it was on Not the Nine O'clock News (my memory fades with age!)

There are lots of other examples around. I have also seen plenty of blogs on this subject, mainly based in the US.

http://www.worshiptherock.com/forum/topics/how-do-you-change-keys-either

http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2011/04/the-power-key-change-in-worship-songs/

http://kncsb.org/blogs/dmanner/is-worship-change-ever-painless/

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Ian

On 26 Mar 2012, at 15:06, Muir, Pauline Elaine wrote:

Hello All,

 

Many thanks to the abundance of response thus far – all really useful information to explore further. I am less interested in the ‘how to’ even though I will also follow up these suggestions, (Duncan – I will see if I can access the text that you mentioned from the British Library) My key focus will be on critical aspects such as why, where and possible impacts.

 

Many thanks

 

<image001.jpg> 

 

Pauline Muir
Course Director
B.A. (Hons) Arts Management

 

From: srm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:srm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Muir, Pauline Elaine
Sent: 26 March 2012 13:20
To: SRM...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [SRM-SIG] Material on Transposition

 

Hello All,

I’m also on the search for material. My Phd thesis is looking music in a black majority Pentecostal church in South East London.  One of the aspects that I’m interested in – is the use of transposition in congregational singing – the practise whereby choruses are transposed up a tone on repetition. Has anyone come across any material on transposition generally it doesn’t any to be in a church setting. I would be very grateful for any input on this.

Best Regards

PS I should also say how useful I found the posts in this group

<image002.png> 

Pauline Muir
Course Director
B.A. (Hons) Arts Management

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Ian Mann
Principal Lecturer - Audio and Music Technology
Course Leader - Audio and Recording Technology
Department of Media Technology
Faculty of Technology
De Montfort University
Leicester
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