On 15 May 2004 at 11:46, Andrew Stiller wrote: > 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.
I learned the C clefs in college theory, but I never really became good at any of them until I played an instrument that used one (viola da gamba with alto clef). And I'm only really good at the one C clef that I use all the time, alto clef. Tenor clef gives me fits because it's so very close to alto clef. When you play from a clef on a regular basis, the reading of the clef becomes second nature, but it is intimately tied up with the mechanics of playing the instrument. I'm preparing with a group I'm in to play a wedding job and some of the music we're playing from is notated for recorders. This means that the lower parts are notated in treble clef/treble clef 8bassa. While I have no trouble at all reading those clefs in the abstract (I've been doing it my whole musical life) it gives me fits to read those clefs on bass viol, where they are completely unnatural for the repertory I'm accustomed to reading. So, there's reading clefs and there's reading clefs! -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
