How good are you at transposing "on the fly"?

[bassGtar]

I can’t transpose “on the fly” because I don’t know the chord progression. But then I’m more a smart-ass than a bassist and I haven’t even practiced in three months (hoping this isn’t permanent).

Regarding all the intelligent posts here, which I’m going to reread later, how does memorizing the pattern help you create something that is musical. Unless you have great ears, and you probably do, aren’t you just creating chunky clunky bass lines that are always lunging for the next root?

Depends, I’m at the end of the day a position player, if you want to transpose a 1-4-5, I’m your man, if you want me to transpose “All or me”, or some jazz type tune, I’m not your man.

This is me too, not becase I’m a position player, I don’t think I am, but because all the chord substitutions and secondary dominants. Are there shortcuts or paradigms for dealing with those?

 

[dougjwray]

I was quite spoiled early on because the first guitarist I ever worked with was classically trained and could play anything in any key and transpose on the fly without any thought. He didn't even own a capo and thought they were weak sauce but was not mean-spirited toward those with less training.

I worked with him for about a decade. My head was definitely skewed by this because I really believed that most guitarists would have enough training to not need a capo, and have always had my heart sink just a little when the capos come out of the case.

You are correct that most of the don't understand the concept of concert pitch and believe the key is designated by the chord forms they are playing rather than the pitches they are producing. It's one of those things I have had to make peace with.

You were lucky to have worked with that classical guitarist.
I will say that capos do have a legitimate reason to exist: open chords have a certain timbre, and capos let you move them around. Your classical guitarist, and someone like Joe Pass -- who probably knew a gazillion voicings for each and every jazz chord in the world, in every key -- didn't need capos because they weren't strumming open chords up and down the neck. But yeah, if capo users would only recognize what they're actually doing -- changing the key -- and communicate that, it would be helpful.

 

[dougjwray]

Back to the OP...
What might help is improving your ear to hear characteristic sounds like the tonic chord going to the dominant chord, or the subdominant chord resolving to the tonic chord (a plagal cadence--"Amen"). If you can start to hear the music move in these and other common ways, you can cut out the annoying step of counting frets.
Edit: I just realized that this post restated what had already been said over and over. Sorry about the redundancy!

 

[Egg250]

Regarding all the intelligent posts here, which I’m going to reread later, how does memorizing the pattern help you create something that is musical. Unless you have great ears, and you probably do, aren’t you just creating chunky clunky bass lines that are always lunging for the next root?

If you know what is coming next, you would have an idea of what you could play or where you could go next. Roots are easy, and that's my goto when I get lost. But if you know a C is next, you could play any note in that C chord, or a run of notes in that chord working to the next chord, which might be D or Am.

 

[LBS-bass]

I can’t transpose “on the fly” because I don’t know the chord progression. But then I’m more a smart-ass than a bassist and I haven’t even practiced in three months (hoping this isn’t permanent).

Regarding all the intelligent posts here, which I’m going to reread later, how does memorizing the pattern help you create something that is musical. Unless you have great ears, and you probably do, aren’t you just creating chunky clunky bass lines that are always lunging for the next root?


This is me too, not becase I’m a position player, I don’t think I am, but because all the chord substitutions and secondary dominants. Are there shortcuts or paradigms for dealing with those?

Because patterns don’t need to be played in a specific sequence. If you know where the major third or fifth or seventh always is relative to the root, you always have harmonically valid choices and you know how to get to them instantly. So it opens up a ton of improvisational options.

Like anything else, you still have to practice, but if you practice enough you just know where the right notes are without having to think about what they are.

 

[Mark Ambler]

As a Jazz player I have memorised many tunes, and transposition is always a beneficial exercise.
There might be the one change that ‘throws you off’, so I make a point of being familiar with it.
Maybe try playing Indiana in 12 keys, you can set it up in the iReal app to transpose.
Definitely a skill that makes you a better player, what’s not to like?

 

[Marshallstc]

Transposing on bass is as easy as it gets. We’re lucky in that regard. There’s no acceptable excuse for not being able to do it with your eyes closed.

If you can’t do it, then you’re stuck on thinking in notes, when you should be thinking almost entirely in intervals.

It’s absolutely fundamental technique; it was quite literally the entire focus of my second second lesson ever: Thinking in intervals/patterns, not notes, and moving them around the board.

Sure… I use my EHX Pitchfork

 

[LBS-bass]

Transposing on bass is as easy as it gets. We’re lucky in that regard. There’s no acceptable excuse for not being able to do it with your eyes closed.

If you can’t do it, then you’re stuck on thinking in notes, when you should be thinking almost entirely in intervals.

It’s absolutely fundamental technique; it was quite literally the entire focus of my second second lesson ever: Thinking in intervals/patterns, not notes, and moving them around the board.

You were lucky to have guidance in this.

 

[Papageno]

There is also the situation where one needs to transpose standard notation on the fly. This typically happens when a horn player brings a lead sheet in Bb (clarinet, tenor sax) or Eb (alto sax).

A trick that helps with reading such sheet music written for transposing instruments is if one is able to read in different clefs.

For a bass player (familiar with reading bass clef), reading an alto sax sheet (Eb instrument using the treble clef), is a breeze: you simply just pretend it is written in bass clef, mentally removing 3 flats from the key signature (i.e., 3 flats becomes zero flat-zero sharp, 2 flats becomes 1 sharp, 2 sharps becomes 5 sharps, etc.) and you're done. (one needs to pay attention to correctly interpret accidentals).

For lead sheets for Bb instruments written in treble clef, this is a little more tricky: pretend it is written in tenor clef and mentally remove 2 flats from the key signature. The tenor clef is much less familiar to most people though, unless they have played cello or some classical double bass. I know how to read it, but not fast enough to do it on the fly (not to mention ledger lines).

 

[Jaycat]

Are we talking Louie Louie, or All The Things You Are?

 

[Al Rivera]

It's a great skill to have in your tool box,I wouldn't rely on a pedal,rather I would work on your transposing. Playing a 5 string can make life much easier if you need to transpose a lot. I worked with some femail singers that loved to switch keys,especially eb.

 

[EBierke]

I recently started working as part of duo, with a singer-guitarist. We're building up a 3-hour set from scratch, so I'm learning a lot of songs mostly by downloading lyrics and chords from Ultimate Guitar.

From time to time we start rehearsing and he asks me change the key of the song from what I've learned it in (typically, the key it was recorded in by the original artist) to a new key that he's better able to sing it in. (Note: I have no problem with this ... I think it's important that we play in a key he can comfortably sing in.)

Whereas he can whack on a capo and effect an instant key change, I have to try to immediately transpose what I've learned into the new key. Too often I'm making mistakes, especially when the key change is to an uncommon key with lots of awkward sharps and flats.

I'm tossing up whether I should grit my teeth and just "get better", or whether I should just create some pitch-shift presets on my Zoom B6 effects pedal to do the transposing for me.

What do you think I should do?

Do you have trouble transposing on the fly? Am I just an inadequate bass player who needs to get more proficient at the skill of transposing?

 

[EBierke]

Doesn't Ultimate Guitar offer a free transposition feature along the side or down at the bottom of the page? AZ Chords is similar, if one site doesn't offer that feature the other site might. Of course, impossible to accomplish while at a gig, but for future reference after you copy & save the page, and print it out.

 

[Cave Puppy]

I’m pretty good at transposing on the fly. if I know the song in a closed position, that is, no open strings.

 

[LBS-bass]

Doesn't Ultimate Guitar offer a free transposition feature along the side or down at the bottom of the page? AZ Chords is similar, if one site doesn't offer that feature the other site might. Of course, impossible to accomplish while at a gig, but for future reference after you copy & save the page, and print it out.

Yes, but having paper in front of you is not "on the fly."

 

[BassChuck]

I usually don't have any problem with this since the groups I play with have written music. I was a french horn player years ago and anyone who has done orchestral work on horn knows that sight transposing is part of the gig. Anyway, I had a small jazz gig a couple weeks ago and a singer was sitting in. She said she had the music, but we'd have to transpose. No problem, I'm ready for that. But.... the music was lead sheets and of course I had to deal with only the chord symbols. (eh...) It was there that I learned that transposing a written part on a music staff is a world different than reading letters. Looking a 'G' on a music staff that thinking down or up the number of lines and spaces is very different that looking at a letter G and thinking about moving the root a requested interval.

 

[EBierke]

Yes, but having paper in front of you is not "on the fly."

OP also said: "From time to time we start rehearsing and he asks me change the key of the song from what I've learned it in..." as in: not live at a gig.

 

[micguy]

I do all my gigs memorized at this point. Once a song is in my brain, it's usually a relatively trivial task to transpose it - as I do church gigs, I do repeats of different songs in different keys, and most of the time, when I pull up the music and start preparing for the next weekend, I can play through a song I've played before no matter what the key is this time around without bringing up a chart or anything - I may not even notice that it's in a key I haven't played it in before. Transposing on the fly, at least for players who memorize and play by ear, is a skill that develops naturally and becomes second nature - if you do it a lot.

I have had a worship leader change the key on a song not just at rehearsal before the gig (that happens from time to time), but once, the worship leader had misplaced her capo, and as she couldn't play the tune in a different pattern, she announced live during the service that we'd be doing it in a different key. Glad I'm able to transpose on the fly.

So, to the OP's question - it's a skill to work on, not something you should buy a pedal for. You know you need to work on it, so take some of the tunes you do in your duo, load them into software that can transpose it (I use Anytune), and you have a source to play along with to build that skill. There are a lot of folks that will tell you how to do transposition - using Nashville numbers in your head, etc., but the truth is, if you work on doing it by ear, it becomes something you do in real time without thinking about it, which is the goal - to be able to play music in any key, and be present and fully aware of what everyone else is doing - that way you can be occupied with making artistic choices, not doing mental gymnastics to make sure the next note is the right one.

 

[LBS-bass]

OP also said: "From time to time we start rehearsing and he asks me change the key of the song from what I've learned it in..." as in: not live at a gig.

I’m going by the post title. It’s possible someone comes into rehearsal with charts in the desired key but at that point what is there to transpose?

 

[Diplock]