# Picc and flute



## erica-grace (Jul 10, 2019)

Not too confident about my abilities to properly understand this 

Flute is as written, while piccolo sounds one octave above written, correct? 

So, the first half of the bar, the picc would sound two octaves above the flute, and in the second half of the bar, the picc would sound one octave above?


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## Living Fossil (Jul 10, 2019)

Two ressources that can help you to answer such questions on your own, in about 20 seconds:

www.google.com

www.wikipedia.org


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## JT (Jul 10, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> Not too confident about my abilities to properly understand this
> 
> Flute is as written, while piccolo sounds one octave above written, correct?
> 
> So, the first half of the bar, the picc would sound two octaves above the flute, and in the second half of the bar, the picc would sound one octave above?


Yes


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## erica-grace (Jul 10, 2019)

JT said:


> Yes



Thank you.


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## erica-grace (Jul 10, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> Two ressources that can help you to answer such questions on your own, in about 20 seconds:
> 
> www.google.com
> 
> www.wikipedia.org


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## dzilizzi (Jul 10, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> Not too confident about my abilities to properly understand this
> 
> Flute is as written, while piccolo sounds one octave above written, correct?
> 
> So, the first half of the bar, the picc would sound two octaves above the flute, and in the second half of the bar, the picc would sound one octave above?


I'm actually finding your questions helpful. I have an orchestration handbook that talks about a number of instruments that play different notes than what is written. Now for a VI you play what you want to hear. But if you were going to orchestrate for say an Eb flute, is it better to write the actual notes they play, even though it doesn't sound right as written, or the notes you want to hear and let the player transpose as they go along? This is something I don't quite understand as I only play a little piano and sing.


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## JJP (Jul 10, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> But if you were going to orchestrate for say an Eb flute, is it better to write the actual notes they play, even though it doesn't sound right as written, or the notes you want to hear and let the player transpose as they go along?



The part that the player will read should always show the notes that the player will play on the instrument. Do not expect musicians to transpose or read an improper clef.

You may write the score in concert pitch (non-transposed), but parts given to players must always be transposed for their instrument so that the notes shown on the part are the exact notes they should play on that instrument.


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## bryla (Jul 10, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> I'm actually finding your questions helpful. I have an orchestration handbook...


Just wanted to say to OP that I find you ask great questions! It shows you care about the craft of musicianship beyond samples.


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## Rodney Money (Jul 10, 2019)

May I suggest the greatest little book I’ve ever bought. I’ve had it for almost 20 years now.


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## JohnG (Jul 10, 2019)

Just one addendum. In a "concert score" pitches are _almost_ all at concert pitch. For example a written C in the concert score for a Bb clarinet is written and is expected to sound as C, but would be written into his _part_ at D, in line with @JJP 's post.

However, octave-transposing instruments are an exception. Even in a concert pitch score, octave transposing instruments like piccolo, celeste, and contrabass are typically written exactly as the player will see them. Consequently, their sounding pitch is higher or lower by an octave (or even two octaves depending on the instrument). Piccolo will sound 8va, contrabass 8vb.


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## ed buller (Jul 10, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> Two ressources that can help you to answer such questions on your own, in about 20 seconds:
> 
> www.google.com
> 
> www.wikipedia.org



true....but surely we are here to help no, and perhaps a post like this would lead to the OP learning something he can't from Google and Wikipedia ?

best

ed


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## ProfoundSilence (Jul 10, 2019)

Or the part where 1.) Wikipedia can be dead wrong. How a score is written in 1800 is kind of irrelevant if the people who would play your music have a different preference. 2.) google's results do not filter most accurate, simply most popular results. It's not uncommon for different text books to have conflicting information, and when it comes to the internet - the chances of this continue to increase, because information doesn't even go through a publisher or anything, just simply dropped from the "post reply" button by a guy with a fancy user name and a picture of baby gators and absolutely no name or career.

I guess the moral of the story is that lads like Socrates and plato were right, we can't know anything.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 11, 2019)

ed buller said:


> true....but surely we are here to help no, and perhaps a post like this would lead to the OP learning something he can't from Google and Wikipedia ?



My post wasn't meant ironically.
It's a good thing to develop the ability to do online research.
E.g. the wikipedia article for piccolo comes with the following image, which is self explaining:




And yes, i know that sometimes there are bad Wiki articles. And that Google filters.
Still, we are talking about most basic stuff. Which you get perfectly answered in a couple of seconds.

In contrast, the question of how to notate in a score and in parts, as in the follow-up question of @dzilizzi , is legit, since here there are in fact different possibilities which might be unclear for a beginner.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 11, 2019)

ProfoundSilence said:


> Or the part where 1.) Wikipedia can be dead wrong. How a score is written in 1800 is kind of irrelevant if the people who would play your music have a different preference.



It's not helpful to make false statements. While Wikipedia is far from being perfect, it's simply untrue to claim that Wikipedia only states how scores were written in 1800. 

E.g. there is the following statement:


> In conductors' scores and other full scores, music for transposing instruments is generally written in transposed form, just as in the players' parts. Some composers from the beginning of the 20th century onward have written orchestral scores entirely in concert pitch, e.g. the score of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D♭.



From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposing_instrument#Conductor's_score

Also see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transposing_instruments


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## ProfoundSilence (Jul 11, 2019)

I like that you think google "filters" bad Wikipedia articles. 1.) Wikipedia isn't google, isn't owned by google, and google does not have any authority to filter Wikipedia. 2.) google is a search engine, and it filters by most popular results, not most accurate results. Being eager to trust either is not something I can condone, helping other musicians is something I do condone. You might not have mean insult by your low effort response of just linking google - but next time if you don't know, do exactly what I did(not offer advice). She probably asked the forum because she'd rather people that are in the trenches answer her, rather than just plug into Wikipedia and pretend to be an expert because faceless pages can never be wrong.

side note, [email protected] is a pretty silly email for a professor - but she's a musician who has hosted masterclasses, and I doubt she just said "why are you asking me, just look up what I said I Wikipedia"


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## mikeh-375 (Jul 11, 2019)

Rodney Money said:


> May I suggest the greatest little book I’ve ever bought. I’ve had it for almost 20 years now.



Mine has been thumbed to shreds Rodney. Every time I was going to London for a session, I'd devote a little journey time to that pocket book to just keep me fresh. That and a few Ravel pocket scores took care of train journeys punctuated by delays because of the UK's crap rail system in the south east.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 11, 2019)

ProfoundSilence said:


> I like that you think google "filters" bad Wikipedia articles.



Why do you try to misread what i've written???
I have not written that Google filters Wikipedia articles. Please read more carefully and don't start trolling.


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## ProfoundSilence (Jul 11, 2019)

Living Fossil said:


> Why do you try to misread what i've written???
> I have not written that Google filters Wikipedia articles. Please read more carefully and don't start trolling





Living Fossil said:


> And yes, i know that sometimes there are bad Wiki articles. And that Google filters.



Starting a sentence with "and" makes it appear as if you meant a comma, not a period, between those two lines. If you didn't mean this, then you're saying that you know google filters - which does not address that google's algorithm doesn't actually address accuracy of a website, only popularity of it. I'll take the advice of trolling from someone who doesn't waste everyone's time by using bandwidth to tell someone else to google information.


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## Living Fossil (Jul 11, 2019)

ProfoundSilence said:


> Starting a sentence with "and" makes it appear as if you meant a comma, not a period, between those two lines.



Yes, i wrote "and" since in my very first comment i mentioned both Wikipedia and Google.
So, this is a condensed statement that both, the encyclopedia and the search engine, aren't perfect.
And yes, the issue with Google is rather their ranking system than really filters, but the effect is similar. E.g., if a great search result pops up at side 23, chances are low that someone will read that.
However, let's stop this useless insinuation game...


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