Traditionally, all the parts in a standard "British-style" Brass Band (of which
there are representative examples all over the world, including mainland Europe
and North America) are in transposed Treble Clef, even the Tenor Trombones and
EEb & BBb Tubas, which we refer to as Basses. The only exception is the Bass
Trombone, which uses Bass Clef in Concert. This goes right back, at least to
the oldest music in my band's library dated 1862.
But not over here, as I mentioned in my first post. Mainland European editions carry extra parts (esp. for the Trombones) in concert Bass Clef pitch. UK bands will never see these as their publishers only bother with the requirements of the UK bands, although they would certainly sell more copies if they did.
A great many of the players in Europe and USA who are not at home with these transpositions have learnt these clefs and transpositions to suit (or just rewrite out the parts!). Now that the UK Brass Band line-up has become popular in these countries, mainly due to do the wealth of music written for it, their own publications appear with parts in clefs and transpositions to suit their own traditions and players. Why should they be tied to the peculiarities of just one country. The notes will come out the same whatever clef they're in!
It is only because of a continued and blinkered approach from the UK publishers that parts are not available in other clefs and keys for the foreign bands. European Bands have been around for as long as the UK ones, some even longer and all with a various and fascinating array of line-ups, most depended on what they could muster at the time. They all read in different clefs, transpositions and even have had instruments manufactered in different pitches to suit, so there was never one *correct* way.
That is why any publisher worth his salt will provide parts for ALL clefs and instruments, that way assuring sales to any country, surely a good thing and so easy to accomplish in new publications when using Finale and other music notation software. Maybe now is the time to establish a worldwide standard and concert pitch bass clef for the low brass would seem by far the most logical solution.
The reason for this was (and still is) that when a band is short of players, any
player can pick up any instrument and be able to sight read and finger the notes
correctly without needing to transpose. For non-professional bands this is
sometimes vital. I play Bb Euphonium and Trombone and I have frequently needed
to play Eb Bass or Eb Tenor Horn when the band is a bit on the thin side, even
Bb Flugel or 2nd Cornet occasionally. For this reason alone I don't agree we
should all "go concert" as you suggest.
And what about your players who wish to play in other ensembles? They are not going to get very far knowing only one transposition! Surely, this will seriously limit the available musical enjoyment open to them. Players who are prepared to break the pack and learn to read in another clef and transpose will certainly reap the rewards.
I've never heard of Bass Clef transposed before.
Well I can assure you it is alive and well in France and many other European countries.
Back in the 80s the UK Euphonium and Tuba diploma sylabus (LRAM, ARCM etc.) used to carry works from the well respected publisher Alphonse Leduc (examples: Tubacchanale by Roger Bountry, Piccolo Suite by Pierre Max Dubois, Fantaisie by Pierre Petit). These always had the solo part written in both concert bass clef and transposed bass clef (Saxhorn Basse Si b). In fact, old military band scores can be found that contain parts in this transposition.
Jonathan Smith
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