At 1:02 PM -0700 9/15/11, Mark D Lew wrote: > >I can't recall it mentioned in this thread yet, >but there are various ways to indicate that a >treble clef sounds 8vb below. The little "8" >below the clef I think is a relatively modern >development, and I think it's only with the >advent of digital engraving that it has really >become standard. Much more common in opera >scores is the treble clef with a pair of >squiggles to the right that look like a >shorthand bracket.
Yes, the "little 8" is recent, and may have been used first in scores for recorder ensembles, before digital engraving became a personal endeavor, with the octave-higher indication for soprano (descant) and bass recorders. (Recorders actually sound at 4' pitch, an octave above the voice parts they're named for, but the conventional notation for alto and tenor obscures that fact.) The G-clef + Bracket you mention I've never seen in opera scores, but have seen in choral music. The idea was to clarify that middle C was on the 3rd space (and thus an octave below the regular G clef), but it always looked odd because ALL the clefs have always been attached to lines, not to spaces, for the last thousand years. Another method--and it may have been Novello--was to use two treble clefs side by side, presumably assuming that they would weight twice as much as a single treble clef and thus sink down an octave in pitch!! The "little-8" notation is by far the most exact (and in theory should be used for piccolo, string bass, guitar and bass guitar parts, but there's too much tradition behind the conventional notation for those instruments). It makes the other attempts to find a solution look pretty dated. And with the dying out of the movable C clefs in general use and in music education (except for the instruments that have retained them as standard) it's probably the best compromise by far. (If our original poster were playing from string quartet scores, he would almost certainly be complaining about having the viola in alto clef!) Broadway piano-vocal scores are even worse than opera scores, since plain treble clef is almost always used regardless of the voice called for. In fact you sometimes can't even figure out which octave is intended, and it's easy to make a decision that's different from what was done with the original cast. We've got the same problem with late medieval music (for those few of us who actually care!). Hildegard's wonderful 12th century music was notated in a way that LOOKS as if it's for men's voices. (The church developed the notation, women weren't allowed to sing in church, so there was NO notation suitable for women's voice!) When the group "Anonymous 4" sings the repertoire with women's voices they are not singing in the notated octaves, or maybe even with the notated pitches, because they've adapted the music to their own voices. John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music School of Performing Arts & Cinema College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences 290 College Ave., Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "Machen Sie es, wie Sie wollen, machen Sie es nur schön." (Do it as you like, just make it beautiful!) --Johannes Brahms _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
