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I understand that British band music is written in treble clef. My question, If written in bass clef does the E-flat tuba sound concert pitch? Does it transpose? Thanks

In bass clef Eb tuba music is written in concert pitch, untransposed. Written pitches are on the same lines and spaces as they are in treble clef notation, but accidentals and key signatures are different because treble clef brass notation is transposed for all but C instruments.

So if a student were playing an E-flat tuba is band, would they have to transpose the parts?

With a few regional exceptions, it is the general custom to have ALL bass clef instruments read concert pitch (non-transposed) music, regardless of key.

It is up to the musician to sound the written note. Performers will often think of "a set of fingerings" which are required for each key instrument, F tuba, Eb tuba, CC tuba, BBb tuba, etc.

So a C3 is a C3 on the E-flat with the 1-2 fingering combination? it doesn't sound something else correct?

plyndatuba05 wrote:So a C3 is a C3 on the E-flat with the 1-2 fingering combination? it doesn't sound something else correct?

Yes.

Here's how it works in "British" brass bands. This is standard for "treble Clef" transposing instrument part writing such as Eb, F, D horn or Eb, D, C, or Bb trumpet, or Bb Eb, or A clarinet.

Tuba parts are written in treble clef and are transposed as appropriate in the written part. With the exception of bass trombone, which in the past was generally played on a G trombone with parts written in bass clef written at 'concert' or sounding pitch, all instruments are in Eb or Bb.
Eb soprano cornet, Bb cornet, Eb tenor horn, Bb baritone and Euphonium, Bb trombone, Eb and Bb tuba. (and yes, the two tuba parts are often somewhat different).

The Eb tuba part can be read as bass clef by adding 3 flats (and adjusting accidentals as appropriate) just as one can read an Eb horn part as bass clef in this manner. An advantage of using this system is that if one were to change instruments, say a Bb cornet player needing to play Eb soprano or Eb tenor horn, or a Eupho player covering Eb tuba, they could instantly play the right fingerings as with the parts transposed already what was written always took the same fingering ie, a " C" is always "open" and a "Bb" always 1st.

It was always easy for me to cover Eb parts on BBb by using the fake bass clef mode. When I recently sat down and played a rehearsal on BBb (after about 6 years of not playing at all) I just thought of it as if i were reading a standard Bb treble part a'la treble Arbans. Only "problem" was that my mental pitch sense still wanted to hear what I was seeing as bass clef at times so missed a couple higher pitches. A few hours practice again should fix that.

Writing everything in a transposed treble clef notation also facilitated teaching in groups, as everybody (again, save bass trombone) has the same fingering for the same written note, even with it sounding a different actual pitch.

The reason it works especially well on Eb tuba (and for Eb baritone saxophone, for that matter) is that when the transposed notated treble clef "middle c," the note one ledger line below the clef is played, it sounds in concert pitch Eb two octaves lower, which when written in bass clef concert pitch notation is the note one line (plus a flat, which is why the key signature has to be adjusted and the accidentals as well). So the note is in the same position relative to the staff it's being written in.

FWIW: instruments written in bass clef play in concert pitch, and instruments in different keys use different sets of fingerings (or slide positions). [Note: a few instruments, like string bass, bass guitar, and contrabassoon sound an octave below written pitch] This puts to onus onto the player to learn the necessary fingerings and to keep them straight, which is easier for the composer/arranger/orchestrator.

Instruments written in treble clef are transposed (except for C instruments, like flute or oboe). Saxes all use the same set of fingerings, no matter what the key. Same within each family of instruments for clarinets, flutes, trumpets, French horns, and oboe/English horn. It is the job of the composer/arranger/orchestrator to do the transposition, so the players do less work in this respect.

British brass band parts written in treble clef put the responsibility for transposition on the composer/arranger, and all of the instruments except bass trombone use the same set of fingerings, no matter what the size or key (trombone occasionally has to read tenor clef, bass trombone usually is in bass clef).

Since C treble clef instruments play in concert pitch, some people used to the treble clef system incorrectly label concert pitch bass clef tuba parts as "C tuba", even though the music can be played by tuba in any key. I've occasionally seen treble woodwind players have difficulty understanding the whole idea of bass clef instruments having to learn different sets of fingerings.

Weeellll....french horn playing in bass clef must transpose. There exist parts in not only F transposition (which is the most common,) but knotty things like Bb basso and even H basso. The only non-transposed bass clef part would be in C basso, and most horn players actually have trouble with this, as they are used to F transposition fingerings. And horn players, when playing classical music, are exposed to many transpositions that in the past were merely a crook change but nowadays require the ability to read a moveable clef (and use moveable fingerings.)

MA

MaryAnn wrote:Weeellll....french horn playing in bass clef must transpose.

This also occurs in parts written for other instruments, e.g. in Germany the bass clarinet might be Bb bass clef, and I believe it's common in Mexico and places in South America.

But I think in the larger picture, these are thankfully rare anomalies.

I recently had an unexpected chance to benefit from the Eb bass / C treble trick mentioned above, when I filled in on Bb tuba in rehearsal and for uninteresting reasons found myself playing several pieces in Bb notation. The funny thing is that it was only halfway through the second piece that I recognized that I was essentially playing Eb tuba, which is normally easier for me than Bb. At that point, those pieces transformed from an awkward transposing problem to the easiest stuff in the book, if it weren't for the accidentals anyway.

to avoid any further confusion to the OP....please, let's avoid the technical details for a bit.
In the US tradition, which is what the OP seems concerned with, all tubas read the same concert-key music. For each key of tuba, a new set of fingerings must be known.
This is not universal to ALL bass clef-reading instruments, though.

The original question was;

plyndatuba05 wrote:I understand that British band music is written in treble clef. My question, If written in bass clef does the E-flat tuba sound concert pitch? Does it transpose? Thanks

SOThat is where the replies have been directed - rather than
:

eupher61 wrote:to avoid any further confusion to the OP....please, let's avoid the technical details for a bit.
In the US tradition, which is what the OP seems concerned with, all tubas read the same concert-key music. For each key of tuba, a new set of fingerings must be known.
This is not universal to ALL bass clef-reading instruments, though.

And among them should be a pretty good overall explanation of how things are done in different places for different instruments. Shouldn't be too confusing as now one could figure out what to do in most any situation.

I started on Eb in the 8th grade back in the spring of 1961. When I went to high school that fall, all Decatur Community High School had was BBb horns. I did not play Eb again until about 30 years ago. I have pretty well learned the different fingerings and I now play Eb 3/4 of the time. I have found that I do not want to use both key horns in the same performance as I forget which one I am playing and lapse into incorrect fingerings. To me, the simplest explanation is to just learn your fingerings and you will have no trouble.

1895King wrote:I started on Eb in the 8th grade back in the spring of 1961. When I went to high school that fall, all Decatur Community High School had was BBb horns. I did not play Eb again until about 30 years ago. I have pretty well learned the different fingerings and I now play Eb 3/4 of the time. I have found that I do not want to use both key horns in the same performance as I forget which one I am playing and lapse into incorrect fingerings. To me, the simplest explanation is to just learn your fingerings and you will have no trouble.

VERY true!!! It is also handy to be able to transpose and read different clefs as well as it opens up new worlds of literature.

Then there are the occassions when it really pays to do something other than just read standard bass clef such as.....

One time while I was at Northwestern, studying with Jake, (my freshman year I think) it was term "jury" time. Crissafulli, Chicowickz, Brouke being the panel. (Jake never came , in fact he never came to campus in the time I was there.) The final bit was some sightreading. Vince had picked a rather tricky little trumpet piece which involved I forget what fairly infrequent transposition. I asked if they wanted the transposition or if i should read it as bass clef or a Bb or C trumpet part. Brouke (horn) said the transposition would be nice. So that is what I did.
"Well done", said Vince, "most of the trumpet players didn't even notice what it waswritten for and several who did messed it up." It PAYS to be flexible, practice all the hard stuff, and look before leaping.

G'day,
Just for the sake of completeness you do occasionally see European transposed bass clef parts which is a real pain.
In case anyone's confused about the playing of Eb treble clef parts by pretending they're a bass clef part and vice versa, the fact that you can do this is sheer coincidence. The same trick works for tenor clef and transposed Bb treble clef trombone parts.

Over the years I've played both BBb and EEb tuba off both bass and treble clef and played C and A clarinet parts on Bb clarinet as well as Bb and C parts on A clarinet and had to play treble clef concert pitch parts on a variety of clarinets, saxophones and tubas.

The most interesting exercise is playing a transposed treble clef tuba part holding the tuba with my right hand and playing the piano part (in a different key) with my left hand while trying to reduce the piano part to a left hand alone part. This is easier with a top action tuba than a front action. (Slide pulls are impossible).

Does this qualify as a good TNFJ answer - (I realise I've got a looooooong way to go before being able to claim true membership).


Regards

Gerard

MaryAnn wrote:Weeellll....french horn playing in bass clef must transpose. There exist parts in not only F transposition (which is the most common,) but knotty things like Bb basso and even H basso. The only non-transposed bass clef part would be in C basso, and most horn players actually have trouble with this, as they are used to F transposition fingerings. And horn players, when playing classical music, are exposed to many transpositions that in the past were merely a crook change but nowadays require the ability to read a moveable clef (and use moveable fingerings.)

MA

True, and it was a situation that I ignored and should not have. Generally horn basso is there to avoid a ton of below-the-staff ledger lines and is still transposed, as you said.

I was writing about common practice in the US and didn't pay attention to a few variations for less common situations. There are other aberrations to common practice here and there, and you have to learn to deal with them. There are many different local practices in other nations (sometimes aberrant in the case of composers/arrangers/orchestrators who figure out a different way to write parts and ignore or don't know about common practice). Long-standing notational traditions in different countries can be a pain to learn, but the more you know, the better off you are.