Klarinet Archive - Posting 000324.txt from 2004/01

From: Dan Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Stupid bass clef bass clarinet question!
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:01:51 -0500

Patricia A. Smith wrote:

> All right, I knew eventually I'd betray a certain lack of knowledge and
> get whipped with a wet noodle on this list.
>
> Despite having actually performed certain parts ON bass clarinet IN bass
> clef, I STILL am confused at what is SUPPOSED to be regular practice:
>
> When you play bass clarinet in orchestra (or band for that matter) and
> your part is in bass clef, do you read the part in concert pitch, or do
> you read it as Bass clarinet in Bb?
>
> I know, it's a stupid question, but I ended up basically playing my
> parts by ear and hoping for the best! (It turned out okay, and I DO
> read bass clef! Difficult to play piano and not do that!) Talk about a
> pain in the...
>
> Patricia Smith
>

Pat, there are three issues concerning the clef and the pitch of bass
clarinet parts and all of them are for the purpose of enabling as much
of the music as possible to be within the staff. As long as music for
the b.c. is within the staff, then the treble clef is a rational
solution. But the nature of the parts is such that they are often
required to go below the staff, and this creates the visual problem of
seeing the pitch of the notes when surrounded with so many staff lines.
So that created the practice of writing for the b.c. in the bass clef.
But to keep the physical note within the staff as much as possible,
the parts are generally (but not always) written one octave lower than
they really sound.

While it may sound as if the best solution is to use treble clef to keep
the notes within the staff as long as possible, and then switch to bass
clef when the notes goes below the staff, that presents a slight
confusion to player, namely "which clef am I in right now?" So certain
countries (or schools of playing) adapted a one-clef rule.

But the rules are not universal. Wagner, for example often used the
bass clef but did NOT write the notes one octave lower than they sound.
Because of this, a b.c. player has to know (or at least ask the
conductor) what to do in peculiar cases.

And not only are parts written for B-flat bass clarinet in the bass
clef, but also for A bass clarinet in the bass cleff, a particularly
difficult transposition.

When I was playing Wagner operas, there would be lengthy passages in
which I was not participating, and my mind might wander a little. When
I had to enter, the first questions that came to my mind was "What pitch
of clarinet, what clef, and what key?"

If you want to be a serious b.c. player, you are going to have to get
used to the fact that you need to play in every clef and in every
bass-clarinet pitch. You have the alternative of transposing the part
and writing it out, but then you must have the part early enough to do
this. It's good on a computer, but not perfect. Sometimes the
enharmonic notes can scare you half to death. B may come out as
A-double sharp.

I know of no cases in which one reads a b.c. part in bass cleff in
concert pitch. That would be a b.c. in C and I only had one such part
in my life. It was b.c. in C in the bass clef, and I simply did not
know that transposition. So I asked the composer (who was there at the
concert) why he had selected such an unusual tactic.

His response was, "What? Didn't the publisher's transpose that part for
a b.c. in B-flat? I wrote everything in concert pitche and expected
them to transpose the part."

--
Dan Leeson
leeson0@-----.net

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