Hi I am just starting with Music having basically retired after many years as an IT Architect. Beginning with Piano as the obvious way into Western music with a love of Jazz and the blues high on my agenda and an interest in sax, trumpet etc. as skill increases - I was kicked off on this path by youtube of Joan Chamorro and the Sant Andreu Jazz band combined with a life long love of listening to jazz and classics..
I believe I have got a good grasp of chromatic and diatonic scales in even temperament and understand the difference with true temperament. I can even see why blowing down a longer tube will produce a different note as in soprano and baritone sax.
However I am baffled by "Traditionally instruments tune to a concert A (F# on alto and B on tenor)". I know concert A is 440 Hz the A above middle C on the piano. Then I discover that I have to transpose my music down a whole tone for B-flat trumpet for example. Why? Surely a 440Hz vibration is going to produce A no matter what. Is it that transposing instrument players just like to see their open pipe note occupying the centre between the two staves which is the normal position for middle C on Piano or do the vibrations actually produce a different note in a tube to a string?
I believe I have got a good grasp of chromatic and diatonic scales in even temperament and understand the difference with true temperament. I can even see why blowing down a longer tube will produce a different note as in soprano and baritone sax.
However I am baffled by "Traditionally instruments tune to a concert A (F# on alto and B on tenor)". I know concert A is 440 Hz the A above middle C on the piano. Then I discover that I have to transpose my music down a whole tone for B-flat trumpet for example. Why? Surely a 440Hz vibration is going to produce A no matter what. Is it that transposing instrument players just like to see their open pipe note occupying the centre between the two staves which is the normal position for middle C on Piano or do the vibrations actually produce a different note in a tube to a string?