M&D p 172 spoiler question

[Alan Westrope]

On Thu, 8 May 97 14:20 BST, andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk wrote:
>Jeremy Osner writes:
>> Brian D. McCary wrote:
>> > Spoiler
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>> In a related vein, do you know anything about "that most martial of
>> keys, B-flat major"? (I'm not sure what page, it's mentioned in the 40's
>> or 50's somewhere during the fight between the Seahorse and L'Grand.
>
>Well, it may or may not surprise you to know that the (Scotish)
>bagpipes are traditionally tuned to B flat major. And I think it is
>common for other military instruments to employ the same tuning -
>e.g. a military clarinet.

Yes, wind instruments for bands tend to be built in 'flat' keys --
e.g. B-flat trumpet/cornet/clarinet -- while string instruments (both
Stradivarius shoulder-mounted violins and Fender belly-mounted
geetars) often prefer 'sharp' keys like E, A, and D, so that they
can use open strings and not have to use the fingers of the left
hand as much to change the strings' pitch.  (I expect to get flamed
for this admitted oversimplification, but I can't think of a better
quick 'n' dirty explanation.)  So band music tends to be written in
keys like B-flat (e.g. the Star-Spangled-Banner), E-flat, A-flat, etc.

Orchestral clarinet players use two clarinets, one in B-flat and
one in A, for example.  A-and anyone who's ever had to play the
piccolo obbligato and the end of Sousa's "Stars and Stripes" --
written in A-flat -- knows there's a helluva difference in playing
it on a C or a D-flat piccolo.  The Industrial Revolution resulted
in improvements to wind instrumets that made it easier to play in
all keys, but in M&D's time the differences were fairly pronounced.
(Ye don' see those elaborate silver key mechanisms on bagpipes,
do ye?  Much of their importance is historical, an' ye don' want
to be tinkerin' wi' THA'!)

-- 
Alan Westrope     PGP public key:  http://www.crl.com/~awestrop
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