Klarinet Archive - Posting 000370.txt from 1996/08

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Clef change instead of note change
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 14:19:18 -0400

Neil Leopold asks about clef changes as a substitute for note-by-note
transposition. He wants more details as to how the process works.

Neil, if you can read both treble and bass clefs, you are well on your
way to solving the transposition problem. There are a lot of clefs
including the tenor clef, the soprano clef, the alto clef, etc. A note
in the treble clef has meaning to you on the clarinet because it causes
you to place your fingers in a certain position. But if you were reading
bass clef at that very instant, you would place your fingers in another
position. If effect, you would be transposing if, when the part read
treble clef, you imagined it in bass clef.

Well keep going. Learn how to read alto clef and thus one was of
transposing would be to make believe that the music in front of you
was in the alto clef. For the clarinetist, it is rather easy since
you only need to master about 4 or 5 clefs and that's a year's
work. For a conductor who wants to read a full score, they simply
learn how to read every clef (it ain't so simple) and then things
fall into place.

On several occasions you have seen comments on this list about reading
C clarinet transpositions on A clarinet by making believe it is in the
bass clef and then adding some compensatory sharps or flats as the
case may be. Well that technique works to transpose B-flat clarinet
on to A clarinet by simply changing the clef.

It is as if you were on a boat with a high mast passing under a bridge.
None-by-note transposition is something like taking down the mast.
But clef transposition is like raising the bridge.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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