On 14 Apr 2005 at 15:24, Darcy James Argue wrote: > Thanks -- the cello question is actually more interesting to me. > While I'm not a cellist, I personally don't see much point in using > tenor clef very often in cello parts, since, as you say, bass clef is > fine up to around G4 -- at which point, why switch to tenor clef when > you're already up in the middle of the treble clef? And, as you say, > "as soon as it hits even one C(5)" -- treble clef.
Are you talking about treble clef at pitch or treble 8bassa, the traditional notation? > So basically, tenor clef is useful for parts that lie mostly above G4 > but not above B4. That's a rather limited set of circumstances. I've > usually found myself just staying in bass clef up to A4, and then > switching straight to treble clef at B4 and above. No complaints so > far. It seems desirable to me as a general principle to limit the > number of clef changes in any part, and to only switch to a new clef > when absolutely necessary. Going back and forth between *three* > different clefs in a cello part seems excessive to me, even if that is > the tradition. But I'm curious what others on the list think of this. Well, I'm not a cellist (I'm a viola da gambist), and for me the relevant clefs are bass clef and alto clef. The issue is not really the range of an instrument or of an idividual note. It is all about the shape of a particular musical passage. You don't want to break it up with clef changes, so any coherent musical passage should remain in one clef. But you also don't want it to be hard to read because of ledger lines. Thus, you can't have a hard and fast rule based on any single note -- the choice of the notated clef has to be based on musical context. The hardest thing is determining exactly when the clef change should occur. The worst thing to do is to put it in a place that visually misrepresents the passage, e.g., where the notes before and after the clef change appear a step apart, when in actuality they are much further apart -- an example would be from a bass clef B to an alto clef B, which looks like a step up, but is a full octave. Especially dangerous is a clef change where the staff line for both notes is exactly the same. My rule is to try to make sure that the relative motion on the staff lines is in the same direction as the actual motion, whenever possible. This means avoiding the change from bass to alto for any interval less than an octave up, for example. And I'm also with whoever said that they have some doubts about the suitability of a viola part written by someone who knows so little about the instrument as to have notated it in treble clef. Sounds like the composer really wants a violin (with an extra string), rather than a viola. -- 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
