Transposing help

[redamerican182]

First of I'd like to say I had no idea where to put this topic incase its in the wrong one.

My question is can anyone help me in learning how to transpose? I want to try to write some concert band music (just for fun). But I have no idea how to write it for other instruments. It would help to know how each instrument compares to another. It would also help if someone could show me a website that has like a graph or something that can help.
Thanks

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Okay, hopefully you have a sufficient knowledge of scales and scale degrees. Take C major for example, it has the following notes:

C, D, E, F, G, A and B.

Now, each of those notes is assigned a degree, based on where it is placed in the scale.

C is the very first note in the scale, seeing as it is called the "C major scale". From then on, you go in alphabetical order, back until you reach the original note name, giving each a number.

C = 1
D = 2
E = 3
F = 4
G = 5
A = 6
B = 7

And then the C after that last B can be represented as either an 8 or a 1.

Now, if you consider a scale with accidentals, for example E major, you do the same thing, but for the notes that have accidentals in the scale, you just add that accidental to the scale degree. Example:

E = 1
F# = 2
G# = 3
A = 4
B = 5
C# = 6
D# = 7

The notes F, G, C and D natural don't exist in the E major scale, so therefore they're not given a position in the scale degrees (although F can be represtented as a "flattened 2nd degree", but we won't get into that).

Now, each degree is given a name, and I'll name them, but they're not too important. This is just incase you want to know.

1 = Tonic
2 = Supertonic
3 = Mediant
4 = Subdominant
5 = Dominant
6 = Submediant
7 = Leading note (called subtonic in natural minor scales)

Anyway, to my original point about transposition, there are two separate methods, but I suggest that you apply the use of both when transposing something.

First method: List the notes and their degrees from the key that the song is originally in, for C major, that would be:

C D E F G A B
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Now, under that (yes, physically write this down, :p), write the "new" key that you'll be transposing into and each note and their degrees. For you, this will be A minor:

A B C D E F G
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Now, this may be time consuming, but hey - transposition is time consuming.

Look at your piece, and your first note will be a C. Consult the original table, you will see that the "C" is the first degree. Once you have noted this, look at your second table, and look at which note is also number 1. You'll see that it is A. Do you get where I'm going with this?

If you see an E, consult your first table, and see that E = 3, then look at your second table and see that 3 = C. And so on and so on it goes!

Just remember that if you see, for example an F#, and you see that F is the fourth, make sure that when you take the fourth note from your second table (D, in this case) that you sharpen that too. Same applies to flats and naturals.

Second method: This still requires the tables from the first method, but not nearly as much.

Find out the first note, and write that down in your new key, then look at the next note and note the difference between the two notes. It might be the very next diatonic note (eg from the space in the clef to a line), then you can simply move to the "very next diatonic note" in your new key.

Does that make sense? If it doesn't, just tell me.

[redamerican182]

No really that was a huge help and it probably to a long time to write so thank you. I really just want to learn to do it so I can write music and write the parts for different instruments for fun but this was a big help thanks a ton.

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

Well that's what you need to know to learn how to use it, even if it is just for fun...