Question about Bflat

[Dukester]

I saw a fake book that said it was for "Bflat instruments." Is Guitar a Bflat instrument? It said it was for piano and guitar and has guitar schords. Some songs sound fine, some sound a bit off, but maybe that's my ear. If must is for Bflat instruments, can I play them as normal...?

Thanks...!

[FLDavid]

A guitar is not in any particular key; it can play in all keys, like a piano (or, really, any instrument)

Every brass instrument has a harmonic series - the notes you can play without depressing any of the valves.
Depending on the length of tubing the harmonic series can be based on the key of Bb, C, D, Eb, or F (horns)

An example of a Bb instrument is a trombone or baritone (euphonium).
A BBb (double B-flat, so-called because it is pitched an octave below a trombone) instrument would be a tuba or sousaphone

In other words, play as normal on your guitar (or piano); the notaion in the fake book is written for brass instruments so that they do not have to transpose

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Dukester

I saw a fake book that said it was for "Bflat instruments." Is Guitar a Bflat instrument? It said it was for piano and guitar and has guitar schords. Some songs sound fine, some sound a bit off, but maybe that's my ear. If must is for Bflat instruments, can I play them as normal...?

Hi Dukester...
No, the guitar is a C instrument. Trumpets, trombone, baritone, clarinet and a sax or two are Bb instruments. When they play a note that is written as a ''C'' on paper, it sounds Bb in concert pitch, or on a guitar or on a piano.

[tadmania]

And the reason this is so is because of the resident tonal range of varying instruments. That is, most instruments are not in any "key" per se, but occupy different ranges of the entire spectrum of notes (Saxophones and flutes and trombones, and so on). Writing for these instruments in varying "keys" (and actually calling the same note by a different name when we assign a key to an instrument, An Eb on an "Eb" instrument is the same note as a C on a "C" instrument) makes notating the instruments on the conventional staff easier and less confusing.

One might fugure... if the trumpet is near the middle of the entire tonal range, and the euphonium and the tenor sax were "keyed" the same as the trumpet, their notes would be either consistently below or above the staff, right? Sure they would. Changing the "key" of the instrument moves those high or low tonal ranges into the staff so that reading the music is easier.

If you tried to play the notes you recognize as C and G from, say, trumpet notation on your guitar, you would be a full step flat, actually playing Bb and C. But it is not so much the different instruments, it is the way musical notation is changed to accommodate different instruments that makes this so.

[daleyfolk]

So if you show up at a jazz jam, you should be carrying your Fake book in C. The trumpet player will have his fake book in Bflat, and the sax's will have their fake books in E-flat.

Everybody ends up playing in the same key.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by daleyfolk

So if you show up at a jazz jam, you should be carrying your Fake book in C. The trumpet player will have his fake book in Bflat, and the sax's will have their fake books in E-flat.

Everybody ends up playing in the same key.

Hi daley...
Good explanation.