Sheet music in your key (3 ways to transpose your music)...Part 1

Stephan:
So you've got that perfect song that you're sure will leave those power Agents and Broadway Casting Directors drooling...only, you sing it through with your voice teacher and you hear those dreaded words "You're going to need to take this up a whole step, you need to change the key, it needs to be transposed!" To many those words may be tragic. For you (after reading this 3 part blog entry) those words will be opportunistic (your opportunity to get a song in a key the others don't know how to get). Suddenly that soprano version of 'Old Man River' that you've always been dreaming about singing for your "RENT" audition is possible!

To be super clear, "transposing" a song means changing the key, raising or lowering all of the notes in the song, to better fit your voice. You have 3 basic choices when you need to get a song transposed. I'll begin with Choice 1 and continue with choices 2 and 3 in the following weeks...

Choice 1. Buying sheet music online and printing it at your computer. This is perhaps the easiest method. If you go to a sheet music store online such as MusicNotes.com, SheetMusicDirect.com, or FreehandMusic.com, you can often find exactly what you are looking for. Once you decide to purchase a song, many songs have the option of transposing the song before you print. However, there are some things you should be aware of before you buy:
A. Not all of the songs on each site have the option for transposing (though many do). Make sure it's an option before you buy (if you want it in a different key than the original).
B. Sometimes you'll find a song on one of those sites that you can't transpose, but on a different site that same song is transposable. In other words, make sure you shop around to a couple different sites if you don't immediately find what you want.
C. With these sites, you have to print and choose the key when you buy the song. You can't come back a day later (after your voice lesson) and try to print it again in a different key (you would have to then buy it again).

I assure you the whole process is very convenient. Their software will play back the music to you, so you can sing along and be sure it's the key you want. The fact that you can sit down and find that audition song, have it printed out and in the key that best fits your voice in under 10 minutes is pretty amazing (considering how long that process took a few years ago!)

If you're interested in these sheet music sites, follow our sponsored banner links on our UltimateTheatreHomepage (at www.UltimateTheatreHomepage.com). They are the banners at the very bottom of the page (quick and easy to access if you're using the homepage regularly!).

Read next week and I'll continue with Choice 2 of your 3 transposing options...