 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2004-05-12 13:48
Having spent many years reading treble clef exclusively, I'm having trouble getting used to the bass clef. Any advice/tricks?
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2004-05-12 14:00
On occasion, having a church choir part handed to me, to play a bass clef [C]line on bass cl, a double transposition, no less, I just hand it back and ask for a computer transposition, suggesting it reduces the frequency of mistakes, partic. for accidentals. Employing the bari sax/alto- contraalto cl "trick" is a possibility, read as such, add 3 #'s. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-05-12 17:31
I learned to read bass clef by picking up a bass recorder and simply doing it. At the beginning, I transposed down a third, and then it caught on.
Another way to do it is how I learned to read treble clef way back when I was a beginner. One day, I realized that the note on top of the staff was G, and I could link my finger position (all of the left hand down) to it without thinking. From then on, I knew that whenever I saw that note, I could immediately go to the G "feel."
The next day, I realized that top line F was the same as G, but with the right index finger down, and after a few minutes I had that "in my fingers" too. I then continued down and up, until all the notes were that way.
So -- draw a staff with the bass clef on it and write some note -- say, second-space C. Then, anchor that note to its fingering. That is, glance at it and immediately play C. Repeat this, say, 25 times. Then play something, and every time you come to the note in the second space, "click" your fingers down to the correct fingering. Then go back and repeat the glance-and-play exercise 25 more times. Do the cycle another time, so that you've done the glance-and-play 75 times.
Do this again the next day, and the following day, until you know you'll never have trouble with the C again.
Once you really, really know C, draw third line D on the staff. This time, think the fingering for C, but with the next finger raised, so that you know both the D and the C and D together. Then, do the same with first line B-- C with another finger down.
Within a week, you will have all the bass clef notes programmed in.
Give this a try and report back on how you're coming along.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ralph G
Date: 2004-05-12 18:25
Draw an extra line below the staff, then treat the top printed line as if it's a leger line.
Bonus points if you can then play two octaves lower than it's "written."l
________________
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
- Pope John Paul II
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-05-12 18:30
wjk: In similar vein to Ken Shaw's comment, that's basically how I learned to finger the Clarinet. So to begin playing viola, having dabbled in violin some years earlier, it was handled pretty much the same way.
Note names don't mean diddly-squat when you begin playing an instrument. What you want to do is see a note on the staff and play that note. If you go through the mental gyration of: "Let's see, that's a D, and you finger a D like this..." you will be behind the curve for a long time. My suggestion is that you not even think of the note names as you are playing. And if you have to discuss a note with another player or a conductor, you can think of it easily enough.
Regards,
John
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2004-05-13 06:19
Spend time on it. Write out some four-part music. Learn a bit of piano.
In my case, three years later I misread a couple treble clef notes as if they were in bass clef and knew I had arrived.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-05-13 14:26
Hi,
I have also read the bass cleff as is and then transposed up a step plus an octave or two as required. Having played piano for many years helped but after a little bit, you just automatically do it. Just another of the transpositions that as a working musicain you might encounter.
HRL
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Author: Brad
Date: 2004-05-13 16:21
I learned by practicing the Bach cello suites on Bass Clarinet. Start off as slow as you need to to get the notes. I think just learning how to read Bass clef is better than having a trick. You never know when your going to get that call to play the Ring cycle on Bass Clarinet.
Brad Cohen
Clarinetist
la_brad@yahoo.com
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