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I really don't know how you pianists do it. Not only can
you play multiple notes at a time, you can also play different rhythms and
phrases simultaneously with each hand. (I'm a poor, no, a decent, bass
clarinetist who creates his musical conversations one note at a time, and
it often takes both hands -- and a mouth -- to produce that one note!)
But what really gets me is how you can read two staves at the same time,
where the left-hand dots on the staff have a different meaning than the
right-hand dots. I just don't get bass clef.
And that's because I've always been a treble clef guy. This may seem
confusing because I play a BASS clarinet. However, most bass
clarinet music (at least most that I've seen) is written in treble clef, a
major ninth above how it sounds (rather than a major second, as with most
other B-flat instruments.) My guess is that this is because bass
clarinetists are often doublers on soprano clarinet. (Some might say we're
soprano clarinetists out slumming!) And soprano clarinet music is written
(and sounds) in treble clef.
A few weeks ago I had a wonderful opportunity to play my first classical
piece with an orchestra. I had never played with strings before -- unless
you count the game of Cat's Cradle. :) Through another musical connection,
whose back story I'll fill in later, I was invited to play Franck's
Symphony in D Minor with a local community orchestra. I was to have three
weekly rehearsals, followed by two performances. So I picked up the sheet
music as quickly as possible, in order to practice at home.
Guess what? It was written in bass clef! Now, I can figure bass clef out, a
note at a time: "Looks like a treble clef A, so add two and make it a
C." However, the tempo was a little too brisk for that, even in the Lento
sections. It was even worse than that, because of the major ninth
phenomenon: "Looks like a throat A, so add two and make it an
upper-register C, oops, no, a lower-register C... Hey, wait for me!"
So, rather than spending the week before my first rehearsal practicing my
part, I spent it transposing my part. I used Finale Guitar software
(which has much broader application than its name suggests). This way, once
I entered the part, I could just push a button to transpose it without
error.
"Once I entered the part..." Well! That minor detail took me
15-20 hours, after which I "just" pushed a button. But that time
included meticulously double-checking my work. And I was rewarded with a
professional-looking copy at the end of it.
It was lots of fun after that. The performances were fun and rewarding, and
my part, rest-full though it was, did add a new voice to the music.
My assumption was that, since this was my first exposure to orchestral bass
clarinet music, then that genre must normally be written in bass clef. But
another woodwind player told me that, although French composers seem to use
bass clef, most orchestral BC music is written in treble clef -- that
portion of the musical atmosphere where I'm most comfortable breathing.
Do any of you out there have any clef-hanger stories to tell?
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