Brass Band Transposition. Help Please!

[timothy42b]

A few choices:

Read tenor clef, add two flats to the key
.

Wouldn't that be alto clef? He's reading a Bb bass clef part, not a Bb treble clef.

I could do it in the staff but ledger lines would kill me. I might resort to writing in an occasional note name.

Outside continental Europe, Bb bass clef basically doesn't exist. It certainly does not exist in a British Brass Band.
The parts are treble clef Bb, and tenor clef works.

Apologies, I didn't read carefully enough. Of course you are right. (although I have seen those "world part" Bb bass clef occasionally)

[timothy42b]

This is one case where the short cuts don't cut it. At the risk of infuriating the rest of the forum membership, all the above don't work.

I really think it depends on how our brains are wired.

For me the shortcuts or transposition tricks don't work very well, but seeing a different clef does.

I've met good players who were just the opposite.

[thevillagetuba]

Getzen CB-50? Hold down the fifth valve and pretend you are playing Bb trumpet.

I've never played trumpet.

If you engage the fifth and use regular C tuba fingerings, then you'll be "pretending to play Bb trumpet."

[Erik_Sweden]

My take on this is to get the music in advance and rewrite them in a computer, transpose and print it.
I don't read BC so when playing in a Concert band I rewrite all.
Works for me

[Donn]

I've done that!

In the situation that brought me to that, it wasn't really a key transposition, it was just crazy key signatures with three armloads of sharps or flats, switching back and forth several times on the page and half my notes accidentals anyway. I'm not fastidious enough about my music theory to care why, and I'm not that good of a reader, so it went into the musical notation editor and came out in one key with minimal accidentals, and a clearer print too.

[tylerferris1213]

Update! I looked at the music like it was in bass clef and played my CC tuba with F tuba fingerings. It finally clicked about halfway through rehearsal.

[iiipopes]

Show your math as to how tenor clef doesn't work.

I was the top algebra student in my class in high school. Instead of wasting time, I woodshedded the lesson book instead. Now, forty years later, I can still play either with equal faculty, and I have concerts on each this fall. As posted above, a person can waste much time trying "fixes" and "shortcuts" instead of just doing it properly: purchase the lesson book and go woodshedding.

Is knowing tenor clef a waste of time?
You still never addressed your claim that the systems I suggested don't work. (because they do)
Closing in on 25 years of brass banding, playing Bb bass parts on CC tubas if you're wanting to trade faculties.

I never said your short-cuts don't work. I said that it is better to do it properly, and I stand by my posts.

Your suggestions are wrong because they entail a person having to take the time to learn the alto and tenor clef first, wasting time when they could just be learning it fundamentally correctly.

There is a time to learn alto clef and tenor clef, and when those times occur, then just like with treble or bass clef, or learning the fingerings and fundamentals of a different instrument, the correct way to do it is to apply the fundamentals and learn it correctly the first time, not rely on short cuts.

[aqualung]

There is plenty of time to learn tenor and alto clef when you are sitting in an orchestra rehearsal counting rests.

[swillafew]

As for the "horsepower" needed: Some years ago I attended rehearsal with a small F and read the BBb part in a very good band. I was asked to join the band (it was too far to drive though). Blending was deemed more important I think than all out volume.

As for the transposition fight, experience leads one to not think of anything as a trick or a shortcut. Just like hearing somebody do a great job, you know that "talent" had little to do with it.

[Uncle Markie]

You have invested a lot of money in instruments. May I gently suggest you invest more time (and probably some money) in your musicianship?
To start with, get yourself an Arban cornet method - an old copy will do - and become familiar with the clef. Get someone to teach you solfeggio, which remains the most practical method of transposition. Get a teacher to take you through the Hindemith books. You will be a lot more confident putting the word "musician" after your name when you can play anything on anything you own in any key asked of you - at sight. That's still the ideal goal.

I have found employment from time to time covering "5th Reed" books on local theatre companies - Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, and Baritone and Bass Sax parts on tuba. When I was making living performing on the tuba I found it necessary to learn what I needed to know to fill my date book. The learning process is ongoing because musical trends change. Widen your horizons and you might find more use for that closet full of instruments you already own.

For the time being copy over the parts you'll need for your concert in "tuba clef". As you grumble over the tedium involved in this remind yourself why you it might be a good idea to get "cornet clef" together.

Mark Heter

[MaryAnn]

Tenor clef plus two flats works for me. On a BBb tuba part I think you'd have to also put it down an octave but don't remember. I use this on TC euph parts. Over time, you know what additional flats and sharps mean, and you end up reading the clef. I read a zillion clefs because a) I am a horn player and b) I read by pitch.

[iumentum]

I have done this a lot, and I solved it by thinking Bb-tuba one whole note down. The first songs I learned in a week by rehearsing them maaaaany times, after a couple of weeks it was a lot easier and did not take that much practice.

Now it is really easy, since I bought a Bb-tuba

[TheGoyWonder]

trumpet players don't complain too much.
I prefer it, bass clef parts would be so far below the staff.