How To Transpose Music Easily

If you are out there performing and you either use Vocal Charts or you print out lyrics with the chords written across the top, chances are you will need to know how to transpose your songs up or down to a key that suits your vocal range.

So I have a super easy trick that you can use to transpose your songs – which gets the job done really fast. Perfect for singers who are on-the-go.

Nicola x

This is how to transpose music in under 5 minutes

Say you want to sing a song but its written by a singer who has a voice that’s too low or too high for you, or a song has some notes are just a little bit too high, what all professional singers do is instead of straining to get those notes we transpose the song down into a key that is suitable for our voice.

Here’s how to do it:

Say you song is in the key of C and we want to transpose it down a bit because some of the notes are too high.

The next note down from C is B, then Bb then A. We’re going to transpose down to A.

Firstly write out the notes in the current key:

C D E F G A B. Then write the notes of the new key below (include the sharps or flats)

A B C# D E F# G#

Then just go through your chords and replace all of the C’s with A’s and so on. Then you’re done!

When you play through the song with the new chords it will sound lower.

So easy!

This works for whether you are moving your notes up or down.

Here is a video I create about using transposition to sing what sounds like really high notes! 

Did you like this video?

Let me know if you found this video useful or if you have discovered an awesome transposing app that you use in the comments below.

If you want to quickly and easily create sheet music and vocal charts etc. Sibelius is AMAZING and so simple to use. It is the program that I use to create all of my own charts for performing.

Click here to grab yourself a copy.