On May 14, 2004, at 2:55 PM, David H. Bailey wrote:
This raises a totally tangential issue -- why aren't more clefs taught in music lessons at an earlier point? Why is it only those who seem destined for collegiate music study who ever are taught about clefs?
I find my private students are usually sponges who will soak up any information I give them and that when the issue of transposition arises or alternate clefs, they learn them fairly easily.
I think that by holding off and making the traditional treble/bass clef structure truly ingrained that many people have a much harder time mastering additional clefs.
David H. Bailey
This doesn't correspond to my experience at all! I started out on clarinet, and was taught only the treble clef therefore. When I studied the bassoon in highschool, I was taught the bass and tenor clefs. All of this was a matter of what instrument I played, not whether I was going to college or not. I would think that only youngsters studying piano or organ would be taught both the treble and bass clefs, without any C clef--and this too would be regardless of college plans.
In first semester college music theory, you have to master all clefs. Violinists and trumpet players who come into this find just as much difficulty with the bass clef as with the C clefs, and trombonists and bassists have trouble with the treble clef. I distinctly remember this from my own youth--feeling rather smug because I came into first-semester theory with three clefs already under my belt.
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