Posted by Mary Ann (long) on August 14, 2002 at 11:40:56:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Bflat trumpet to BBflat Tuba? posted by Rick Denney on August 13, 2002 at 15:57:17:
Rick wrote:
So, I think Mary Ann is being a bit hard on Pat, because I think he knows all those note names.
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Rick, I wasn't assuming that he didn't know note names, but said that he needed to learn to read the clef. It's not the same.
To give you insight on where I'm coming from, this is how I read a clef:
If it is treble clef, and I am playing piano, if I see a note on the middle line, I play a B. Same if I'm playing violin.
If am reading treble clef and playing horn (I call it "horn clef") and I see a note on the middle line, I play an E. (concert pitch; I don't call it a B, I call it an E.)
So by my definition I'm "reading the clef." I have to be careful when I talk to other horn players, to call the notes by the names they call them in order not to confuse them, because I read all clefs in concert pitch. (the "curse" part of so-called perfect pitch.)
Now, my first tuba that I bought from Lee Stofer last December was an Eb tuba. For the brass band treble clef parts, I could read it as if it were horn in Eb, so that the middle line in the treble clef is a D. (played down a 9th from where it is written.) I call it a D, and I play a D. Bass clef was not a problem because I already read it, but I still had to memorize the new fingerings.
My second tuba, the MW 182, is an F tuba. I already know F fingerings from horn, and C bass clef from piano, so there was no transistion required.
I just acquired a CC tuba, a Miraphone 184. I'm hacking through learning the fingerings for it (because I already know the clef.) I know what the overtone series is for each valve combination, but the going is slow, just like it was on the Eb tuba.
The best thing I have found for learning new fingerings has been to play Hall of the Mountain King in every possible key until I can do it fast and easily. (Inspired by whoever posted that recording of himself in high school, a while back.) I'm an old dog too, at 53, and I don't have a problem with doing this level of work over a few weeks or months to get access to a new instrument. I know other people maybe don't want to put in this kind of work, but frankly I don't understand why, if they want to play the instrument. Maybe they have a life outside music?
One sight reads on piano by learning to recognize chords just the way single-note instrumentalists learn to recognize scale patterns. I'm better at it than I used to be, but still lousy.
I have found that for both piano and classical guitar, with their complicated fingerings, the best way to learn a piece is actually from the back forwards, one measure at a time, because then the fingerings get locked in. I don't sight read very well on either instrument although I am moderately competetent on both.
Mary "who has no idea what IQ is required to classical guitar music at sight" Ann