When I was a young pianist,  I really enjoyed accompanying singers in classical art songs.  Reading Gerald Moore’s The Unashamed Accompanist I was put off a bit to find that singers were notorious for turning to an accompanist while on stage and saying, “Take it down a whole step.”

I found being faced with having to transpose lieder of Schubert, Schumann and others totally without any practice and doing it live on stage with audience simply terrifying.

Years later a clarinetist performing in an orchestra told of being in the orchestra for a performance by opera singer Franco Corelli.  After the intermission, the conductor turned to the orchestra and said, “He wants it all down a major third.  I’ll be at the piano, fill in where you can.” and they were off the the races.

Composer Jonathan Blair has laid out a plan for musicians and conductors (not to say that conductors are not musicians, though there are some that are suspect) to fully understand how to transpose in a studded, logical manner.

If I had this book back then when I was working as an opera coach, I would have gotten up nerve and pursued working as a a singers recital accompanist.

Tricks to using the book:

I’d suggest starting with reading the first few pages of each chapter to start out.  In my case I got the concept of the subject each of the ten chapters from these pages which encouraged me to go on. 

This works because each chapter explores a facet of the art of transposition, staring with the basic simple terms.  Then it continues, using colors in a creative way to make things perfectly clear.  Each chapter introduces terms used by musicians that were new to me, and very useful to know and understand.

Blair also suggest that no matter what your instrument is, you should consider also learning to play the piano, since the piano keyboard is very helpful, visually giving you reference points that correspond to the music staff.

This is the kind of book you will keep on a shelf nearby to refer to next to your dog-eared guide to using Finale if you are at all like me.