Music Composition DUMmIES

The English horn is a transposing instrument built in the key of F. In order to

write music for it, you need to transpose your music up a diatonic fifth (five

scale degrees) from concert — to hear a concert C, the sheet music should

read G. Its written range is B3 to G6 (Figure 14-5).

To hear Write

CG

C#/D% G#/A%

DA

D#/E% A#/B%

EB

FC

F#/G% C#/D%

GD

G#/A% D#/E%

AE

A#/B% F

BF#/G%

Flugelhorn ...........................................................................................

You ever see a fox hunt on the big screen or on TV? Perhaps you’ve partici-

pated in a real live fox hunt yourself — in either case, you’ve heard the plain-

tive call of the flugelhorn in action. The flugelhorn is built a lot like a cornet,

but because the bell is a deeper funnel, the sound coming out of the flugel-

horn is much richer and lower in pitch than its slightly tinny cousin. The

flugelhorn is mellower and lower than the trumpet, kind of like a viola com-

pared to a violin.

The flugelhorn is another B flat transposing instrument, with its easy-to-play

range of F#3 to E6 (Figure 14-6). Again, a composer would need to transpose

the musical sections written for the flugelhorn up a whole step from concert.

&

w

cor anglais

concert range

w

Most effective range

Practical range

wb

w

w

Figure 14-5:
The English
horn range,
transposed
to concert
pitch.

Chapter 14: Composing for the Standard Orchestra 171