Posted by Rick Denney on August 13, 2002 at 15:57:17:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bflat trumpet to BBflat Tuba? posted by Pat on August 13, 2002 at 14:30:14:
I can name all the notes on any clef. But I can't sight-read music on any clef.
I learned piano before tuba, so I knew note names before fingerings. Even so, I connect the fingerings to the note on the page. When I play in the treble clef, I have to read the note, and then determine the fingering that goes with that note, and then push the buttons. With practice, I would learn to skip the note-naming step.
So, I think Mary Ann is being a bit hard on Pat, because I think he knows all those note names.
When I added F tuba to my arsenal, I had to learn a new set of fingerings for that instrument. I found that learning them all from scratch, by learning scales using fingering charts, and then by writing fingerings in music until it was no longer needed, was much more efficient in getting to fluency than any other mental transformation, of which there are several. This was the same way I originally learned BBb fingerings, but, of course, it went much faster on the F tuba because the patterns were the same.
The next step is to learn scale fragments and read patterns of notes rather than individual notes. This is a milestone any pro's learning curve, but there are fewer amateurs who can read that way. I can only do it for fairly obvious scale patterns.
Rick "who has no idea how one reads piano music at sight" Denney