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Learning Clefs: How? and Why?!
Well, it's been a while on the new practice regimen, and I'm finding a few ways to streamline the process as well as considering the learning process and what I can learn from that process. I've been mostly thinking about the process of learning to read different clefs.
The first section of 10 exercises, section A, begins with the Alto clef. All of the exercises are in two voices on two staves. First, the alto clef is on top with the Bass on bottom. Then the Treble on top with Alto on bottom. Then the alto can appear in either staff and change clef during the exercise.
The second section (B) works with the Tenor clef. The same pattern of study is followed as was the Alto clef.
The third section which I am half-way through involves combinations of Alto and Tenor combined with the Treble and Bass. We're still in two voices, two staves, but we generally use 4 clefs within the exercises.
Following this section will be introduced the Soprano clef. It will then be combined with use of the other 4 clefs of which we are now familiar.
Following this, we will start using three voices on three staves with various combinations of the 5 clefs. Then we will move on to 4 voices using the model of the String Quartet, and later the vocal quartet (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass clefs) which will be the layout of the AGO Fellowship question in Score Reading. Following this, short 'orchestral' excerpts are presented which must be played by mentally substituting these clefs for transposing instruments.
It's a sound pedagogical process, but it's important to understand what we're learning and how to properly perform these tasks.
I don't know about 'right' and 'wrong' but I have noticed different stages of thinking that I've passed through while learning these different clefs.
Stage 1: Transposition
When I first started learning the Alto clef I noticed that I could find the pitches by imagining a Treble clef and then imagining the note to be a step higher than it appeared. So, a note on the third line of the alto clef (B in treble clef) is imagined on a treble clef one note higher, on the third space giving me C. For a while I read alto clef by imagining all the notes one step higher. This is definitely not the way one should be reading from a clef. It's much the opposite of what we want to use the clefs for in the end! This is like learning a new language by translating a book using a dictionary, one word at a time. The meaning will be revealed over time and you'll learn about the language incidentally, but progress will be slow.
Stage 2: Where is C?
Later I tried keeping track of C and gauging the location of other notes relative to it. In the Alto clef, this is easy because middle C is in the center of the clef, on the third line. I discovered that this still isn't much like the process I use for reading from the old familiar clefs. Still, it is better than Stage 1 because I'm not transposing the notes into an old clef; I am viewing the notes as they truly are.
Stage 3: Relativity
Still later I started reading a bit more like how I read everything else: by interval. If you know your starting note, you can simply play the proper intervals from that note, whether it be a step or a leap of a 6th. This delivers good results but accidentals can still throw you off and you're not building great familiarity with all of the notes and their places on the staff.
Stage 4: Visualize and Attack
At this point, I'm trying to incorporate all the good points of the stages above. I'm not transposing the notes. I'm gradually increasing my experience with all of the notes and becoming familiar with the position of each note on the staff, not just Middle C. I use intervals to help with sustaining my reading, but I train myself to visualize each of the notes on the keyboard and try to build associations between those notes on the keys and those notes on the staff. Put simply, I'm trying to avoid any shortcuts and just observe and learn. Every missed note is a learning opportunity since that will fix its solution in one's mind more firmly.
But there is the matter of what's being learned. I only noticed this after thumbing to the end of the book and attempting an exercise or two. There's a skill involved with reading from an open score of multiple staves that is mostly lacking in piano music and only approached in organ music. When I read music from the page, I see the shapes of vertical sonorities (chords) and reproduce that shape on the keyboard. Even contrapuntally dense music can be mentally reduced to a simple progression of chords. This way, one can get around the discipline of comprehending multiple lines.
In score reading, however, each voice, each line has it's own staff, and sometimes its own clef. The shapes of the chords are broken and the lines must be comprehended both on their own and how they fit together. The shortcut is thus removed and the music must be performed 'honestly', with an awareness of each line simultaneously.
Thinking of it this way, reading music (especially contrapuntal music) from a score is the greatest mental discipline of reading in music. The use of a clef ideally suited to each voice heightens this discipline even further. Therefore, the learning of all the clefs is not only a good idea for an easy way to transpose to any key at sight, but it more importantly expands and trains the mind to hold the whole of the music one is performing or creating. In this way, being a better reader makes one a better performer, composer, improvisor.
And I think that's pretty nifty.
