I'd like to put in an alternate opinion to John's. There is a lot of bass music in treble clef, and they're comfortable reading it if they have the chops to play that high.
Reading bass clef up to G and A (three ledger lines) is very common for intricate passages. If there is an occasional note in the passage higher than that, you can stay in bass. If the passage's tessitura is above an A, I'd go to tenor. As a bass player who has played a wide variety of music, I find it is preferable to make more clef changes than you might otherwise think in order to avoid putting tenor clef notes in the staff. The literature does not give bass players much reason to learn tenor clef in the staff, and so few do. But Barbara, if you know who will play the piece, the best solution is to ask that player. -Carolyn On 2/15/06, John Howell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 7:08 PM +0100 2/15/06, Barbara Touburg wrote: > >I'm working on a piece for cello and harp. The cello part is going > >to be played on a contrabass. At which pitches should I switch > >clefs? Which clefs? > > > >Barbara > > If you're writing for cello, notate for cello. Involving bass is > irrelevant. I would switch to tenor clef at about middle C, BUT only > if the following passage lies in the octave above middle C > consistently. The one thing NOT to do is to switch back and forth in > the course of a passage. Drives the player nuts, unless there's a > really good reason for it like dropping consistently down to random > bass notes, but NOT just to avoid ledger lines. I would avoid > treble clef unless there's good reason to use it. > > 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 > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
