Relearning Treble Clef

newbieguitarmaker · #1 07-23-2008, 02:05 PM

Hey guys, I've been playing music since I was around 3 years old and I started with piano where I learned how to read treble and bass clef. But I stopped and started on violin then switched to bass after about a year or so of violin. Now that I have been reading bass music for so long I cannot read treble clef at playing speed, I have to think about it now. I want to expand my guitar knowledge by re-learning the treble clef so I can read music as fast in treble as I can with bass clef.

I wondered if you guys had any tips to learning the clef so I can get proficient at it, also if you guys have any tips for alto clef too since I have to play in all 3 clefs sometimes for upright bass solos. (Only lame thing is how the alto clef moves and I always end up searching for the middle of the clef sign for the C)

Meedlyx10 · #2 07-23-2008, 02:18 PM

Reading is one of the many things where you're not going to find any tricks or shortcuts...you've just got to do it a lot. I guess one absolute must is that you shouldn't practice sight reading (until you are fluent at it) without a metronome or something to keep time moving...stopping to fix mistakes is counter-productive. Buy a real book, Leavit's "Melodic Rhythms", his two reading studies books (reading studies and advanced reading studies), and some books of etudes for other instruments...violin, clarinet and tenor/alto sax all work will IMO. For the transposed instruments, just read it as though it was written for a C instrument. Another thing that works well is to try sight reading some atonal music...something where you can't just follow the contour of the notes or get comfy reading things that are predictable and easy to follow. For alto clef...I'm surprised you're encountering that enough for it to be an issue, it's just not that common anymore, at least in the states other than for vocal music, I don't know about elsewhere. The same holds true though, just get some books or something with a bunch of music written in alto clef and start reading.

newbieguitarmaker · #3 07-23-2008, 02:27 PM

that sounds like a good idea, I especially think your atonal music idea is good since I have a musical ear so I usually can cheat my way out of reading music, probably why I can't remember treble from violin or piano

and yeah alto isn't THAT common but I still read it in enough solo's where I should at least get a little more comfortable with it.