The child cannot sing certain notes in certain melodies unless it keeps
within a certain range of keys. This teaches them something. The point
has been referred to in the preceding chapter.

Altogether it will be seen that the study of transposition is opening a
new window for them into the fairyland of music.

Later on, when a child can compose short harmonized tunes of its own, it
is well to hold up the ideal of being able to transpose them into any
key, and in certain cases, where the melody lends itself to the
treatment, from major to minor, and vice versa. This work must of course
be voluntary, but a child is well rewarded when it finds that it is only
the first step which costs, and that the second of such tunes is so much
easier to transpose than the first!

And the time comes when a child will sit down to the piano, and will
extemporize quite happily either in F major or in F[#] major, whichever
is suggested. Such work is well worth any initial trouble taken--it is a
combined process of ear and mind which has a far-reaching educational
effect.

The last stage of all in this work consists in transposing at sight from
the printed page. Hitherto the ear and the mind have been chiefly
employed, but now the _eye_ must be trained to do its share.

It is found useful to make children say the names of the chords aloud
when they are beginning this sort of transposition. The habit sets up a
connecting link between the various faculties in use, in some curious
way. The eye can help by noting the intervals between successive notes
in the various parts, and especially in the outer parts. It sees the