 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Echronome
Date: 2015-02-03 06:56
So we're playing this piece in my school's wind ensemble and in the beginning there is a bassoon solo but we don't have a bassoonist. My Band Director wants me to play it. I can read bass clef but it's the whole step difference that kinda makes it difficult. Is there any tips/tricks in transposing between these two?
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-02-03 07:45
I know Eb instruments can read C bass clef easily since the notes rest in the same places on the staff, and Bb instruments can read tenor clef in the same way, but I'm not sure about Bb instruments reading bass clef.
You could always re-write the part transposed to Bb if C bass clef is giving you issues.
I'm playing my first C clarinet part in my youth orchestra right now, and I've found that it helps to focus on reading the music in terms of intervals rather than in terms of note names. Just read the intervals between the notes (seconds, thirds, fourths, etc.) but in the different key. So I'd read a major chord more like "root third fifth octave" instead of "C E G C."
It also helps to know your concert pitches well.
Post Edited (2015-02-03 08:14)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2015-02-03 10:18
Do you play sax?
If you do, then that will help if most of the bassoon part is within the stave and descends to a couple of ledger lines below it, then read it as treble clef (keeping the notes in the same position but changing the clef) and think low register sax fingerings.
So if the 2nd line from the bottom is a concert Bb in bass clef, that will appear as G in treble clef which is all the left hand fingers on sax (or C on bass clarinet - Th. xxx|ooo). You will have to take two flats or add two sharps to the key signature and adjust any accidentals as you encounter them.
The only other thing you can do is drop everything you see down a 5th (if you can transpose down which is harder than transposing up), so the 2nd line bass clef Bb which you can read as a treble clef G drops down a 5th to middle C, one ledger line below the stave.
Anything written in tenor clef can be read straight off on bass clarinet (or tenor sax) - just change the tenor clef to treble clef keeping the notes in the same positions on the stave and adjust the key signature and accidentals accordingly.
Or if you have Sibelius or similar notation software, that can do the work for you once you've scanned or typed the bassoon music into it as is and then copied and pasted it onto an empty bass clarinet stave.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2015-02-03 17:13
For the higher part of the range, you can just read it as if it was written in treble clef for a Bb instrument - but in the wrong register. For example, the F in the bass clef (1 line from the top) needs to be a G. Well, if you just look at it and pretend it's treble clef you see a D. Now take the register key off and you are playing the required G - so almost no thought required.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2015-02-03 18:28
When I was in high school our orchestra had only one bassoonist so I played the second bassoon parts on bass clarinet. I did exactly what Chris P and John Peacock have described above. I was going to write something like what they wrote but couldn't think of a good way to explain it! They've said it much better than I would have.
Of course we didn't have Sibelius back then (the software, not the composer). PCs hadn't been invented yet, for that matter.
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Author: pewd
Date: 2015-02-03 18:29
You could also get a piece of staff paper and write out the transposition.
Or try one of the music notation software programs.
This should work:
http://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale-notepad/
- Paul Dods
Dallas, Texas
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