Many sharps or flats in key signature -difficult/why?

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

Hi,

Karl recommended me SQ 12 of Shostakovich in another thread. I'm still listening to it. Ugh, a hard nut to crack?!... My initial thoughts were: "Intellectual chaos, modern chaos and difficult". Then I read about 12-tone elements and that explained everything

Anyway... in http://www.quartets.de/compositions/ssq12.html I'm reading this:

The key of D flat major contains five flats, not any easy task for strings. Haydn avoided it, so did Mozart and Beethoven. Haydn and Beethoven restricted themselves to string quartets that never exceeded four flats or four sharps. Mozart was even more conservative, none of his quartets is written for more than 3 sharps or flats.

I'm curious: Why is having many sharps or flats difficult, is it technically difficult? Would difficulties arise also in Clarinet playing for instance?

[PaulSC]

Hi,

Karl recommended me SQ 12 of Shostakovich in another thread. I'm still listening to it. Ugh, a hard nut to crack?!... My initial thoughts were: "Intellectual chaos, modern chaos and difficult". Then I read about 12-tone elements and that explained everything

Anyway... in http://www.quartets.de/compositions/ssq12.html I'm reading this:

I'm curious: Why is having many sharps or flats difficult, is it technically difficult? Would difficulties arise also in Clarinet playing for instance?

The "difficult" key signatures vary by instrument. For string players (violin family), their instruments have open strings of G/D/A plus either C or E, so the most familiar fingering patterns are the ones based on scales that include most or all of these open-string notes. The key of D-flat forces string players to refer to potentially less-familiar fingerings and hand positions. But the difficulty should not be overstated: a lot of string repertoire is highly chromatic, so even a piece in a relatively comfortable key such as F major can roam through a region based on D-flat.

The piano is an interesting case. C major is conceptually simple and very familiar, but it forces the hand into a relatively flat position since all the diatonic notes lie on a single plane, so thumb-crossing is a challenge, and one can't easily play with the hands interlocked. The B-major and D-flat major scales are a better fit to the shape of the hand, because the fingers cover the black notes of the keyboard, and the thumb has room to cross underneath and reach the white notes. Chopin is said to have taught his students the B-major scale before any other.

The clarinet is more complicated, because it is a transposing instrument. In fact, two different versions, with different transpositions, are common today: one in A, and one in B-flat. When a written part consists of C-major scale, the first of these instruments will render it as an A-major scale, and the second as a B-flat-major scale. By choosing one or the other of these instruments strategically, the more extreme key signatures can be avoided.

Edit: I feel a bit foolish having explained clarinet transpositions to a clarinet player, but I'll leave that bit him in case it benefits someone else.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

The B-major and D-flat major scales are a better fit to the shape of the hand, because the fingers cover the black notes of the keyboard, and the thumb has room to cross underneath and reach the white notes.

Which makes me wonder why hardly anything is written for piano in those keys. Personally I find the keys with 3 or 4 accidentals the hardest, for conceptual reasons - it makes guessing or anticipating certain notes more difficult.

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

The clarinet is more complicated, because it is a transposing instrument. In fact, two different versions, with different transpositions, are common today: one in A, and one in B-flat. When a written part consists of C-major scale, the first of these instruments will render it as an A-major scale, and the second as a B-flat-major scale. By choosing one or the other of these instruments strategically, the more extreme key signatures can be avoided.

Edit: I feel a bit foolish having explained clarinet transpositions to a clarinet player, but I'll leave that bit him in case it benefits someone else.

Perfectly alright, I'm a beginner and far from knowing a lot... I still have to ask - the case of a Bb clarinet: Is this about technical difficulties - because for instance c# or d# are more difficult to play (regarding which keys are to press) than c or b? As a beginner, it's in fact difficult to play melodies which contain many flats and sharps.

[PaulSC]

Perfectly alright, I'm a beginner and far from knowing a lot... I still have to ask - the case of a Bb clarinet: Is this about technical difficulties - because for instance c# or d# are more difficult to play (regarding which keys are to press) than c or b? As a beginner, it's in fact difficult to play melodies which contain many flats and sharps.

I'm sure ease of performance is a factor — but I'm sure others here know more about clarinet fingering and clarinet history, and they may be able to give you a more complete answer.