Reading difficulties, clefwise, seem to disappear, if students are started on piano. Even if I by no honest measurement may earn the term of pianist, I had the good fortune to be started out on piano.
Another good fortune was to play an Eb horn as a youngster. One of my first orchestral tasks was to play 1st in Haydn's D major piano concerto. I started rewriting the part, but my profoundly lazy mental structure after a few bars had taught me the principles of transposing on the fly. I love Finale in these days of advancing arthritis, where holding a pen or a pencil is out of question, but some youngsters miss out on basic musicians' skills because they refer any reading problem to their computers. Klaus on 15/05/04 17:46, Andrew Stiller at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > 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. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
