CHAPTER XI
THE TEACHING OF TRANSPOSITION
A great many musical people will not take up the subject of transposition seriously, because they have no idea of the lines along which to work. They all agree that the knowledge would be most useful to them, especially from the point of view of song accompaniment, but the path seems to be beset by so many difficulties, and the results of their first attempts are so pitifully small, that they generally give up all hope, and all effort. Then again, some of the books published on the subject are not very helpful to the average student. Some of them seem to start with the assumption that the student is very musical, and can do a great deal by instinct. They therefore give only the roughest directions. Others begin sensibly enough, but leave out so many steps in the work that a student may be forgiven for throwing them aside in despair.
Now there are three chief reasons why the musician would do well to study transposition:
1. For the purpose of song accompaniment.
2. As an aid to committing music to memory, especially that written in a form where different keys are used for the presentment of the same material.
3. As an infallible test of a sound 'general' musical education.
The last reason is not often advocated, but a little thought will show that it is impossible for the average student, not specially gifted in any way, to transpose even an easy piece of music at sight on the piano, without proving the possession of a trained ear and a knowledge of practical harmony. For class work with children it can be made a still more valuable test of progress. For the average child will be quite unable to transpose a simple ear test—such as d f m l s t d—on the piano, from one key to another, say a fifth away, without a good deal of accurate knowledge.
The first exercises in transposition will be very simple—any child of seven or eight years old, who can sing at sight, and take down ear tests, in the keys of C and G major, can be expected to do them. They consist in:
1. Singing any well-known hymn-tune, or simple melody of the Folk Song type, using the Sol-fa names of the notes. It should be sung phrase by phrase, until every child in the class is sure of the correct notes.