Playing Chinese bamboo flute of key "D" as "C"?

Question

Hello Music Community,

I just received my Chinese bamboo flute of key "D", that I want to learn to play. I want to emphasize, that I have no experience playing musical instruments whatsoever.

The thing is, that I want to learn to play this Chinese song Painted Heart, for which I have found the notes (See link or picture below). But I noticed, that the notes are made for a key "C" flute, and not a key "D" as I have.

So how can I play the song, the notes for which are written in key "C", but my flute is of key "D"?

Is there some way to "convert" between the keys?

Link to notes of Painted Heart

Answer 1

C instruments play music as it is written, and it comes out with those very notes. A 'D' instrument has to have the music written a whole tone lower, so when the player reads it, it comes out at the correct pitch.

There are two ways round the problem, assuming you can play notes as written on your instrument.

1. Simply play it as it's written. It will come out sounding a bit higher than it should, but it will still work fine.

2. Re-write all the notes out a tone lower - F becomes E♭, G becomes F, etc. Then read properly. This way, it will be in the key written - it will sound that way. Another plus for method 2 is that when you play with others, who use the same sort of music in the same key, it will sound right with them.

There is a no.3. Learn to play 'wrongly'. In other words, learn all the notes as if they are written out a tone higher. I did this with trumpet, which goes the other way - notes are written a tone higher. So I played all the 'wrong notes a tone higher than written, and I could play along with others who were using standard keys written down.

4. Obtain another flute - this time in C!

Answer 2

First:

The note A# in your transcription is a Bb and the key the song that you’ve copied is written is Bb (respectively G Aeolian, I‘ve edited as the final note is G).

If you don‘t play with another instrument like piano or guitar it doesn‘t matter in which key you are playing and you don‘t have to mind the tuning of your instrument.

But I think you‘d better play it in F than in Bb, as the fingerings for the b-flats are sometimes harder to learn. As you‘ll play in F it will sound in G and C-instruments will have to accompany in G. (Your D-flute is transposing a whole tone up).

The following notation is in F, when you play it as written your flute will transpose it to G. It starts with CAA (corresponding to yours @ 2:59)

https://flat.io/score/5759f628200e86583a9e45d2-painted-heart

(If you want to play to a video that is in Bb then you had to play transpose a whole tone down - that means in Ab - but it will be easier to find a version that you can transpose into another key.)

If I can give you an advicie: It would be better to learn reading sheet music instead of playing just from letters - as your example - or fingerings like this:

https://gist.github.com/slimsag/2ee0626de234df0731d6923200a4f45b

This would be more helpful and beneficial for the future.