 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: tdavis30911
Date: 2004-05-04 15:28
I dont play the clarinet and am wondering what clef does the bass clarinet use. Do they use the bass clef or the treble?
Post Edited (2004-05-04 15:34)
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Author: jez
Date: 2004-05-04 15:41
Some composers write in the trble clef all the time so you read just like the soprano cl. and the music is transposed a ninth.
Some write in bass clef but go into treble as the music requires so its just transposed a tone all the time.
Some realise that the second way leads to a situation where reading in the treble clef is in a different octave from what we're used to normally, so write bass clef transposed a tone and treble, a ninth!!!!!!!
Scales in this system have what looks like a sudden leap of a 7th in them.
The problem is trying to guess what the composer's intentions were. Sadly, they rarely bother to let us know.
jez
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Author: Tom A
Date: 2004-05-05 00:56
This is true. Are you asking for composing or arranging purposes? I think it's safe to say that writing in treble clef in the same way you would for the smaller instrument will be easier for you and popular with performers.
Classical/Romantic French scores seem to use bass clef. The Germans used the treble (at least, all the Saint-Saens I've seen is bass, and all the Mahler treble). All concert band music in my experience is treble clef.
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-05-05 02:21
I have never been aware of any instrument's notation in bass staff that was transposed out of concert pitch. Have I just led a wonderfully sheltered life? The various tubas, for example, all play from concert pitch charts; so F, C, BBb, etc. tubas are all fingered differently.
So, are Clarinets playing from Clarinet music written on the bass staff not handled that way? (What a horrible thought. Fingering cello music differently from your own? Yikes!)
Regards,
John
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Author: marcia
Date: 2004-05-05 06:55
Bass clarinet is written in both bass and treble clef in Bb (with a very few exceptions when it is bass clef in A) so transposing pitch is not necessary. However the octave will be different. For example Middle "C" treble clef is three fingers (left hand obviously). Middle "C" bass clef is seven fingers, or the same fingering as third space "C" treble clef. I'm not a bass clarinet player but I got this tidbit of info from the highest authority-aka. GBK!!
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-05-05 07:11
So, then, is contra-alto Clarinet written on the bass staff in Eb?
My mind is boggled. Years of comfort dashed by new information.
Egad. I sink.
Regards,
John
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2004-05-05 14:27
Practically all modern clarinet music -- bass, contra-alto, contra-bass, etc. -- is written in the treble clef in the appropriate key so that one can use, for the most part, the identical fingerings when switching parts and instruments. If you see a third space C, for example, on your part, you use the same fingering as you would for any other member of the clarinet family. That is why clarinets are known as transposing instruments. The instrument usually does the transposing, not the player.
I am not an orchestral player, but the impression I get from reading this board is that some older music may be the exception to what I have stated. But I have been playing bass clarinet band music for thirty plus years and never have run into anything but treble clef and nothing that needed transposing.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-05-05 16:08
Learning to read bass clarinet parts in A in both treble and bass clef (horrors) is part of the gig.
If you want to play professionally, (or just to save yourself from embarrassment in front of your fellow musicians) - learn how to read it.
I've also heard that there is an underground network among bass clarinetists where they trade among themselves their handwritten "bass clef in A" parts. (probably just a rumor) ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
The last time we did "Ride of the Valkyries" (bass clef in A) I heard our bass clarinetist's endless complaining for about a month.
I know that he even went as far as calling Clark Fobes to see if he had already done it, and could borrow/purchase a transposed part.
He eventually assigned it as a "project" to one of his own bass clarinet students.
Publishers are now including transposed parts (ex: La Valse now comes with a bass clarinet in Bb part) and many pro orchestra libraries have transposed parts on file which they trade among other orchestras... GBK
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2004-05-05 17:00
While the practice of writing in bass clef for bass clarinet was largely a 19th Century issue, there is one work (Jubilee) by a fellow named Chadwick that not only has the bass part written in bass clef, but also manages to call for an A bass clarinet (this being written at a time (early 1900's) when A bass clarinets had not been made outside of Germany for many years).
I'll do the bass to treble conversion in my head, or the A to Bb conversion in my head, but dealing with the musical equivalent of a double whammy (vide Al Capp) was more than my feeble mind could handle. I plugged it into Finale, converted the clef and then transposed the part. End of story.
The weirdest thing was that the music was annotated in the Italian style, but used the German style (bass clef) for the part. I think that Herr Chadwick was a product of an overzealous music composition program, where he was instructed to keep the clarinets all in the same key (the sopranos are in A) and to write tenor and bass instruments (the bass clarinet is, after all, a tenor voice) in the "right" clef so as to make reading the score easier for the conductor.
But, what can you do? Learn to read bass clef for a start, and then avoid any weird music like Jubilee if you can, I guess...
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Author: marcia
Date: 2004-05-05 17:45
Don Poulson wrote:
"But I have been playing bass clarinet band music for thirty plus years and never have run into anything but treble clef and nothing that needed transposing."
If you only ever play band music you will never have to transpose, either pitch or clef. It's only when you venture into the orchestral world that you need to transpose: ie. as well as what has been mentioned here, there is the joy of clarinet in "C", horn in "Eb", horn in "C", trumpet in "A", trumpet in "E".........an the list goes on. The world of orchestra is a whole new ball game from the world of band. But worth the effort indeed!! If you ever have the chance--grab it.
Marcia
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