At 12:40 PM -0700 4/15/05, Carl Dershem wrote:
John Howell wrote:
No howls, just a bit of history. The original reason for using movable clefs was to keep the music within the staff so the scribe wouldn't have to turn his pen sideways for the ledger lines. That's exactly how the fully-developed system of 9 clefs evolved. The original reason still seems to be valid. BUT, clearly one is uncomfortable with what one hasn't yet learned to read!
Well, there's very little call for most of the clefs, which makes reading them a skill that is little taught, and less used for more and more people.
Little taught in the U.S., certainly. I wouldn't generalize about Europe, though. The thing is, there is so much music that was written in times when the 9 clefs WERE used, that when you want to study that music you have to have the tools to do so. So yes, if you consider musicology as an academic issue, the skills have to be learned at the college or grad school level, but they have to be learned. You can't read Bach keyboard scores without knowing soprano clef. You can't read many Renaissance scores without knowing, at minimum, soprano, mezzosoprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass clefs. The choral parts to the original edition of Brahms' requiem and virtually all of Bach's original scores are in soprano, alto, tenor and bass clefs.
And of course once you CAN read the clefs, you can use them for instant transposition. I felt much more secure about reading the notes for horn in F when I figured out that it's the same as mezzo-soprano clef.
I've been playing trombone professionally for nearly 20 years, and have run across 2 incidences of C-clef in all that time, both of them in college.
I would have to infer from this that your professional playing has not involved the playing of standard orchestral literature, since virtually all symphony parts prior to the 20th century were written for alto, tenor and bass trombones and written in alto, tenor and bass clefs. And tenor (if not alto) is certainly used in the standard solo literature. But your point is very well taken: whether you need the clefs depends entirely on what you do in music. No concert band player, no jazz player, and no orchestral player below college level will ever see tenor clef, and will stop dead and refuse to attempt reading it. I'm doing my annual job of recruiting a volunteer orchestra for our annual summer musical, and just got a young bassoon player who at least understands the idea of tenor clef and can learn on the job, since tenor clef IS used in Broadway books for bassoon and cello, if not for trombone. His teacher recommended him over another player who has refused to learn tenor clef.
But your first-person observations are appreciated. That's where we learn from one another.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
