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Change: the player swaps to another instrument, crook or tuning (muta in C = change to C).
Printed in a wind, brass or timpani part during rests, followed by the new instrument, crook or tuning: muta in C, muta in Fl. picc., or for timpani the new pitches. It takes effect at the next entry and lasts until the next muta; the written transposition changes with it.
Also spelled: muta in
Leave time: a clarinettist switching instruments must pick up and warm the new one, and a timpanist retuning needs several bars, more for a large interval. Print the muta at the start of the rest, not the end, so the player can act at once, and check every following note against the new transposition.
Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 (“From the New World”), first movement, flutes, m. 195: “Fl. II. muta in Fl. picc.” — the second flautist takes up the piccolo.
Muta is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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