Klarinet Archive - Posting 000321.txt from 1997/09

From: Mark Charette <charette@-----.com>
Subj: Re: treble clef
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 19:05:49 -0400

I'm starting to think that possibly my question wasn't as
naive' as I thought. The range of answers to why the treble
clef has been:

1) Because
2) Because we'd have to learn a different clef (and I answer - bah!
So what? You had to learn treble. Clefs just ain't all that hard.)

The range of answers to why we don't use 8va for the altissimo
register has been:

Dead silence

I understand the rationale behind using the same clef(s)
for differently pitched instruments (we use the same fingering).

Any of you who've written saying that ledger lines aren't all
that bad tried sight-reading manuscript? What brought this whole
question on for me was sight reading some exercises in my
lesson book, "The Study of Clarinet" by William Stubbins. Some
of the exercies were written in by a grad student with bad
handwriting skills (I presume); I've had to stop dead in my
tracks to figure out which note was indicated since the spacing
is bad in places. We read music using the relative spacing as
indicators; when you read manuscript with ledger lines drawn in
you can be misled easily.

Even pros have this problem (some errors in modern scores can be
traced back to misread manuscript, and the more you're outside of a
staff, the greater the chance for error).
--
Mark Charette "How can you be in two places at once
charette@-----.com when you're not anywhere at all?"
http://sneezy.mika.com/clarinet - Firesign Theater