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Topic: What is a Tenor Clef? (Read 52404 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #50 –
Agnes: you're right, as I told that with the 15 possibles clefs, there is redundancies. And among the 10 you mentioned, only one, I agree.
Nevertheless, and for a synthetic view, through the last link of the page David mentioned, we see the usual current clefs, which are the 7 ones I mentioned, plus "G1".
I think the "C5" should not be used, since redundant.
For 96,4% of music readers, knowing all those clefs is only used for on-fly transposing. Which is always a funny thing to do ;)

AFAIK, the clefs come from the gregorian clefs (which may come from somewhere else). Have a look here to see a C clef. The F clef is as the C clef, with a small drawing at the left ("¬" but going lower).
The calligraphist "decorated" those clefs, as for the G clef which can be a G (German/English) or a Sol (French, Italian…), decorated.
The "two dots" embracing the line indicating the note is only for the Fa clef: it is the souvenir of the two horizontal bars of the F letter...  at least it is what a teacher told me 29 years ago.

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #51 –
Biggest question of all in this discussion: How do we use the Tenor Clef when writing using this program?  If anyone has figured this out, please let me know as I am doing copy work for some arrangements that my symphony conductor has written and he has used Tenor Clef in the cello, bassoon and trombone parts (and he has the most illegible manuscript writing possible)!  I have yet to find a way to move the clef to where I want it -- it always comes out an Alto Clef.  Thanks

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #52 –
Insert/Clef/Tenor seems to do the job!

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #53 –
Peter -- Thank you!  You have just made my life much easier!

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #54 –
Re: "But your comment about tenor clef being easier for cellos because they're experienced (and it holds true equally for bassoons, and probably trombones) makes you think - how did they get experienced in reading tenor clef, and surely treble clef would have been easier when they started! I know it would have been for me, as I had a piano background."

ONLY because you have a piano background. For most cellists the treble clef is more difficult than the tenor clef (and always was) because most cellists learn the tenor clef first.

The tenor clef is difficult for me because long before I took up the cello (as an adult and fairly recently) I had been in the habit of transposing tenor clef bits in orchestral scores by pretending they were treble clef bits and then going a ninth down. The habit was and remains thoroughly ingrained, and it slows me down in fast passages. In any case, I was amused to see that someone had written letter names above the few treble clef notes in my cello part in the Romeo and Juliet Overture I was recently performing with my amateur orchestra while leaving the many tenor clef notes alone.

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #55 –
Re: "We also use Tenor clef as a transition between Bass and Treble clef because it is much easier to use 3 clefs and have the notes stay in relatively the same position on the staff than to be reading at the top of the staff in Bass clef and suddenly have to jump to the bottom of the staff in Treble clef."

That sort of thing is not uncommon in piano music. Somehow pianists survive it.

Re: "Bass and Treble would not work to be the only clefs used for us. The use of Tenor and Treble clefs for the cello at least is to avoid ledger lines because too many ledger lines slows the ability to play the notes as quickly as needed."

In the nineteenth century treble clef cello passages where read an octave lower than notated, obviating the need for the tenor clef. In the Romeo and Juliet score the same tenor clef passages to which I referred in the preceding posting are written in treble clef an octave higher. Various orchestration texts complain about this practices but that's only because the "obviating the need for the tenor clef" thing eluded them. Where the cello goes above this transposed treble clef a simple "8va" will suffice, but that only commonly happens in cello concertos. Orchestral cello parts rarely go above the second D from middle C and usually restrict themselves to the A below (A440).
 

Re: What is a Tenor Clef?

Reply #56 –
Or with fewer typos (I hope):

In the nineteenth century treble clef cello passages were read an octave lower than notated, obviating the need for the tenor clef. In the Romeo and Juliet score the same tenor clef passages to which I referred in the preceding posting are written in treble clef an octave higher. Various orchestration texts complain about this practice, but that's only because the "obviating the need for the tenor clef" thing eluded them. Where the cello goes above this transposed treble clef a simple "8va" will suffice, but that only commonly happens in cello concertos. Orchestral cello parts rarely go above the second D from middle C and usually restrict themselves to the A below (A440).