Amateur bassoon and trombone players who never received private instruction beyond their high school days freak out when they encounter the tenor clef, trumpet and horn players who were workaday band members in high school freak out when they encounter transposition, all of these things are needless if when the elementary music teachers who do try to teach music reading skills would simply introduce the concept of movable C clefs when they introduce treble and bass clefs.
I remember being dumbfounded when I first learned there were more clefs than just treble and bass, and I felt cheated that nobody had told me that at the same time they told me about the treble and bass clefs.
So it would take another class period maybe to introduce the movable C clefs, just think how much easier musical life would be for many of the youngsters later on.
Violinists wouldn't be intimidated when they were asked to read from viola music, cello students wouldn't panic when expected to read in other clefs, and on and on.
And all of those youngsters who go on to study music in college would start at a much higher level of understanding.
Oh well, just as trying to eliminate transposing instrumental parts and forcing players of transposing instruments to learn different fingerings as tubists and recorder players do is impossible, I realize that trying to get elementary music teachers to include movable C clefs is just another "gee it would be nice if" things.
David H. Bailey
Michael Simpson 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?
Question for you, David -- you play trombone, right? Most woodwinds only need to know one clef. Bassoons excepted, I suppose, and I think there are some old bass clarinet parts written in F clef. Violas need to know treble and alto, and I guess cellos have to know those plus bass. What other non-keyboard instrument needs to know more than one clef?
I can't remember not knowing how to read a grand staff (thanks to very early piano lessons). I don't know why C clef always gave me fits when I was studying composition in college. I forced myself to learn it by singing along with the viola part in symphonies; then I noticed that a trombone in tenor clef, doubling a Bb trumpet at the octave, played on the same lines and spaces. In our score-reading classes we'd get 18th century choral scores that were written in soprano, alto, and tenor clefs.
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