Klarinet Archive - Posting 000221.txt from 2002/04

From: Tony@-----.uk (Tony Pay)
Subj: RE: [kl] Clefs
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2002 07:37:02 -0500

On Fri, 05 Apr 2002 06:13:30 -0500, karlkrelove@-----.net said:

> Without denying the usefulness of clefs, I really wonder for how many
> people trying to "learn to read" a clef turns into an exercise that
> reverses what we've been talking about. I have heard many students and
> even experienced musicians who, in reading the less familiar clefs
> (which for most wind and non-viola string players include alto and
> tenor), talk about it as "everything is one note lower (or higher)
> than the treble clef" or something similar. Unless they use a new clef
> constantly (as a violinist who makes a full-time switch to viola),
> many people I know never quite get out of that sort of transpositional
> approach into a real level of comfort reading anything directly but
> the one (or two) clefs they learned as children.

My guess is that the 'transpositional' idea, for someone who learnt the
clef initially by relating it to another, is always a part of the 'haze
of association' I mentioned in my other post.

But in other areas, if you use something often enough, how you began
learning it seems to fade to almost zero importance, so perhaps that's
true of this too.

On the other hand, my own clef-reading isn't of a very high order, and
that might be because I learnt what I can do, the wrong way.

I'm sure some people just hang it all, and other things like harmony
too, off their perfect pitch.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd Tony@-----.uk
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