"World Part" in Bb Bass?

[tokuno]

I picked up the Belwin band arrangement of Anderson's "Bugler's Holiday", and it includes a bunch of extra parts labeled "World Part" for trombone, baritone, and tuba in Bb bass and tuba in Eb bass.
For this arrangement, Eb treble centers the music nicely on the staff, but the Bb Bass doesn't look to me like it improves legibility.

Which country/group/instrument/whatever regularly reads in Bb or Eb Bass (I thought British brass band used Bb treble)?

P.S. apologies if this has been discussed - I searched the forum, but came up empty.

[Ben]

Caution: those world parts are for transposing. Or at least every one that I have seen is. Try to find the non world part, and it should play in the correct key.

[corbasse]

These transposed bass clef parts are only used in Holland, Belgium and France. Quite ironical to call them world parts.

It's a bit crass to categorically state that bass clef isn't transposed. It's just not transposed in your experience. In fact, every clef can and has been transposed. I see transposed parts all the time and prefer them, but then I'm a french horn player playing tuba in a Belgian wind band and a Belgian British-style brass band

I like these parts because it results in clean parts without shedloads of ledger lines, and I can rely on muscle memory for the fingerings. It's just a question of what you're used to.

[Tom Holtz]

We would see Bb transposing bass clef parts every so often at work, a crazy wind band transcription of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" comes to mind. Absolutely no help with the leger lines, and confusing as all heck. They usually resulted in a dismal morning rehearsal followed by a long afternoon pumping the parts into Finale. It's hard for me to get my Bb *treble clef* chops in order. Transposing bass clef parts are death... except for you, Corbasse, playing in Belgian bands. Gigging in Bruges give you some skills us Yanks don't usually develop.

[Dan Schultz]

I play in a British-style brass band. I continue to change the treble clef parts to bass clef rather than to just read the parts as they are. I live in the 'bass clef World' the other six days of the week and at 66 years old... find that I'm easily confused by the fingerings although I'm also a long-time Eb tuba player who has switch almost completely to BBb.

Seems to me that The British have it right when it comes to ease of changing instruments. I've often wondered who the 'nutcake' was who originally insisted that tuba, trombone, euphonium, and bassoon parts here in the US be written in bass clef.

[Bob Kolada]

I've never seen transposed bass clef, dislike concert treble but can manage, and LOVE transposed treble! I hate screwing around with ledger lines. I usually mark anything above three lines above the bass staff and below four lines below the bass staff.

[eupher61]

Strauss Tenor Tuba parts. 'nuff said.

It's part of the vocabulary that a player needs, plain and simple.

[Ben]

bass clef bass clarinet in A.

IIRC Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances has this issue

[pgym]

If memory serves, Strauss's Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote were originally scored for basso (bass clef) Bb Wagner Tuba.

[eupher61]

Tenor tuba, methinks. Gladly will be proven wrong.

[oedipoes]

These transposed bass clef parts are only used in Holland, Belgium and France. Quite ironical to call them world parts.

It's a bit crass to categorically state that bass clef isn't transposed. It's just not transposed in your experience. In fact, every clef can and has been transposed. I see transposed parts all the time and prefer them, but then I'm a french horn player playing tuba in a Belgian wind band and a Belgian British-style brass band

I like these parts because it results in clean parts without shedloads of ledger lines, and I can rely on muscle memory for the fingerings. It's just a question of what you're used to.

Corbasse,
hartelijk bedankt voor je antwoord...ik neem aan dat je Vlaams spreekt, of spreek je alleen maar Frans?...Bass clef horn is a different thing. F horns always transpose down a fifth, regardless of clef...or at least they should.
As a hornist, you probably know that some composers intended bass clef horn to be up a fourth rather than down a fifth.

Even though I did not attend music school. I am constantly amazed by the number of conservatory-trained composers who do not know how instruments transpose. It does not surprise me, therefore, that their writing for those instruments is frequently strikingly un-idiomatic.
The other thing I sometimes hear from composers is "how do I transpose for F tuba?" or "what's the difference in notation for Bb or C tubas?"...indicating a lack of knowledge about how tubas work.
And don't get me started on the euphonium...

Snor "Finance Professor frequently correcting DMA students' notation errors" lax

Leuk om nu en dan een beetje nederlands te lezen op dit forum!

Wind band sheet music in Belgium usually has following parts:
Tuba bass clef, tuba transposed bass clef in Bb, tuba transposed bass clef in Eb, as well as euphonium in Bb treble clef and euphonium in bass clef.
Sometimes even brass band style tuba transposed treble clef in Bb and Eb...

It might seem strange for you, but I have learned about bass clef tuba parts only in the last 4 years, ... If you don't play C tuba over here, you never get to read any.
I had to learn how to read bass clef to be able to play some tuba literature on my BBb tuba...

So as a BBb tuba player I read brass band style Bb, bass clef, and transposed Bb bass clef.
From these, I like the transposed bass clef best, because it eliminates most of the ledger lines, and so improves readability of the part.

Apart from that, it's a good transposed reading exercise, so it's good for the brain to switch between the different notations.


Wim

[corbasse]

Corbasse,
hartelijk bedankt voor je antwoord...ik neem aan dat je Vlaams spreekt, of spreek je alleen maar Frans?...Bass clef horn is a different thing. F horns always transpose down a fifth, regardless of clef...or at least they should.
As a hornist, you probably know that some composers intended bass clef horn to be up a fourth rather than down a fifth.

Even though I did not attend music school. I am constantly amazed by the number of conservatory-trained composers who do not know how instruments transpose. It does not surprise me, therefore, that their writing for those instruments is frequently strikingly un-idiomatic.
The other thing I sometimes hear from composers is "how do I transpose for F tuba?" or "what's the difference in notation for Bb or C tubas?"...indicating a lack of knowledge about how tubas work.
And don't get me started on the euphonium...

Snor "Finance Professor frequently correcting DMA students' notation errors" lax

Hi Snorlax, I do indeed speak Dutch, but not Flemish because I moved here from Holland 'only' 15 years ago.

I realise being a french horn player gives me a skewed view of this whole transposed part business, we're trained from early on to be flexible in both treble and bass clef (which has to be read up/down an octave depending on not always obvious clues). The infamous horn in Db, bass clef part in the Rosenkavalier comes to mind as a nasty curveball.
From high school age on I had to play each etude three weeks in a row: in F, in an easy transposition and a hard one. This is pretty much standard for a horn player with any sort of ambition to be an above average player.

I have two hypothesis why the transposed parts arose, there probably are other reasons as well:

• 1) Historically some wind instruments, especially brasses, were written transposed. Coming from that side it made sense to do the same for the newer additions to the instrument family. Band tubas are treated as (contra)bass saxhorns in that respect. The bass clef makes sense if you follow the old middle C = H4 notation of trumpets and horns.
  
  2) Early bands played a lot of transcriptions of symphonic works. It saves a lot of work if you simply hand the original violin parts to the clarinets/cornets, cello to the euphonium/baritones and double bass to the BBb tuba.

As Oedipoes said, most amateur tuba players over here only ever learn to read transposed bass clef parts, and only the ambitious ones learn what the rest of the world considers 'normal' bass clef.

@eupher61 & pgym: Bb wagner tuba is indeed the tenor version, but the instrument intended by Strauss is an actual tenor tuba, not a WT. Let's not go into the unbelievable quagmire that is WT notation. F**ing confusing hopeless mess is too nice a phrase to describe it.

[pgym]

@eupher61 & pgym: Bb wagner tuba is indeed the tenor version, but the instrument intended by Strauss is an actual tenor tuba, not a WT.

William Melton's article on the history of the Wagner Tuba, Greetings from Heaven, or Demonic Noise? [The Horn Call,Volume XXXIII, No.3 (May 2003), p.49-62] states that Strauss originally scored the parts for WT, and that only later (post-1919) did Strauss come to think that the Wagner tuba parts were generally better off played on euphoniums, baritones or tenor horns.

[eupher61]

Well if you're going to dig up obscured factual data, there's no point in proceeding, counselor. Interesting.
But why are you so well-versed in such smut?

[corbasse]

William Melton's article on the history of the Wagner Tuba, Greetings from Heaven, or Demonic Noise? [The Horn Call,Volume XXXIII, No.3 (May 2003), p.49-62] states that Strauss originally scored the parts for WT, and that only later (post-1919) did Strauss come to think that the Wagner tuba parts were generally better off played on euphoniums, baritones or tenor horns.

I stand corrected, and gladly and humbly bow my head to Bill's vastly superior knowledge on these matters.

[tokuno]

Takes me a bit to get my head around it, but oddly seems easier for me to read than 'normal' C Treble. Just can't do it fast :

TubaCBass.jpg

TubaBbTreble.jpg

TubaBbBass.jpg

[finnbogi]

Strauss Tenor Tuba parts. 'nuff said.

Another example is Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum by Messiaen. The music (Leduc) calls for one tuba in "regular" untransposed bass clef and one saxhorn basse in Bb transposed bass clef.

[Timswisstuba]

The easiest way to deal with Bb bass clef is to take a BBb tuba and use CC tuba fingerings.

Occasionaly I am handed a folder of music with a mixed transpositions and I am expected to play it at sight. If I couldn't do it or complained, I wouldn't be asked back.

In the end, it doesn't matter what label we use for a pitch. (do, C, ré, Bb, Si bémol, H, Es etc..)
What comes out of the Horn is more important than what we see on the page.