Archived under: Random | Transposition, Wagner tuba
NHR: What is up with Baritone Treble Clef Parts?
We get questions that are not always horn related and in the fall I had a question about baritone treble clef parts. I believe the person asking the question was not a brass player and perhaps had no decent methods class as well. I started off by answering,
Those parts are different ways to notate the same pitches. Why there is a treble clef part is because some players will switch to baritone from the trumpet after developing a level of competence on the trumpet. They would play the treble clef part just like a trumpet part with trumpet fingerings and it sounds an octave lower than it would on trumpet.
The bass clef part on the other hand is in C and the player thinks of the fingerings differently. Coming from trumpet a concert B-flat is a written C. For the bass clef player the same note is a written B-flat.
I hope this makes it clear.
It did not. They wrote back again, I explained more about the topic. As I said, it is just two different ways to notate the same pitches, the treble clef part being played just like a trumpet part but with sounding pitches an octave and a step lower than written.
This type of notation is used in British style brass bands top to bottom as well. Basically all the parts are written in treble clef to use trumpet fingerings so that players can move from instrument to instrument if needed easily.
A similar idea actually underlies the odd notations of the Wagner tuba; the B-flat parts actually can be read just like baritone treble clef with trumpet fingerings if that is something you can get your mind around.
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