Posted by John Swensen on August 23, 2000 at 22:50:25:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Transposition Aids posted by TM on August 23, 2000 at 22:02:34:
The early woodwinds were not very chromatic in their early years; usually only a diatonic scale was possible without using fork fingerings or half-hole fingerings, and they were very awkward to play in foreign keys. Since a different instrument was required to play in a (much) different key, parts were transposed to make some sense the players (same written note, same fingering), just as trumpet and horn parts were transposed (same written note, same harmonic in the series). By the time Boehm invented the fully-chromatic modern flute with a sophisticated key mechanism (in 1847, about the time the valve was invented), a large body of music already existed, and transposed parts remained.
I suppose saxophones, chromatic from the start, borrowed their notation from transposing clarinets.