Resources for Clef Practice

Resources for C Clef Practice

Before I leave this subject for a while, I thought I would list some of the resources I will be using to practice open score C clef reading for the next few years in preparation for the Fellowship exam, on the odd chance that another interested organist could profit from it as well.

1. Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading by R.O. Morris and Howard Ferguson

This is the volume that I've completed up to the last chapter at the moment. Though it is primarily designed to prepare the student for the difficult task of score reading, it serves as a very valuable study of the C clefs in different arrangement. After these first hundred exercises, you should have a fairly good grasp of the Soprano, Alto, and Tenor clefs. If you become very secure with those first hundred exercises, then you may proceed into the final chapter which provides exercises in substituting these clefs for transposing instruments. Though it is not required for the AGO exams, score reading is a useful skill and it would be well to cultivate it. But even if you skip the last chapter, this book serves as a valuable primer in the most often used C clefs.

 

2. Harmonized Chorales  by J.S. Bach

I have several volumes of the Harmonized Chorales by Bach lying around but they are all in the "condensed easy to read on 2 staves" version using Treble and Bass clefs. Editions that use four staves and the original clefs (SATB) are harder to find but not impossible. If you go to imslp.org then you can find over a hundred of them in open score. After the cost of paper and ink, it's still a cheap investment for good practice material.

These chorales make for good C clef practice because of their brevity and simplicity. The voices are independent but not to a great degree. A couple of these every morning will do a body good.

3. Fiori Musicali by Girolamo Frescobaldi

Published in 1653, this is a volume of organ music consisting of three organ masses and a couple of extras thrown in. I'll let Frescobaldi have a few words from his letter to the reader:

" Concerning this book, I should like to say that my main purpose has been to assist organists."

"I consider it of great importance for the player to practice playing from score, not only because I think it necessary for those who wish to intensively study the form of these compositions, but particularly also because it is a test which distinguishes the genuine artist from the ignorant."

"Trial and experiment will prove to him who would progress in this art, the truth of what I say! He will see how much profit he can derive from it."

I have a Barenreiter edition of Fiori Musicali which I like very much but it is again condensed to two staves for ease of reading again. While I understand this choice for sales, I wish there was an easily available version in open score, as the composer desired. On checking imslp.org again, we see that there is an open score version of the first edition which is almost unreadable due to the printing process. There is also a handwritten copy from the 18th century available in open score but again, the quality makes for difficult reading. Mind you, we are practicing reading of C clefs in open score, not reading from a messy score.

Seeing no easy solution, I've decided to make my own. I'm a third of the way through inputting the score into Finale in open score and should be completely through in a couple more days. After I finish this, I plan on making it as presentable as I can and uploading it to imslp.org to aid any musicians with similar needs. Here's the opening toccata:

3. The Art of Fugue by J. S. Bach

Again we return to the great contrapuntist for our practice. Fiori Musicali us something to practice that was more difficult and varied than the Chorale Harmonizations. Now we take the difficulty up a few notches. The Art of Fugue is almost exclusively 4 voices and can all be played by two hands with or without pedals with just a couple of exceptions. It makes fine reading material because of the difficulty of playing all four parts together and the great independence of the lines. It's also available in the original open score form on imslp.org.

Beyond this, I'm a little hazy on where to go but these pieces should take some time to get through. Afterwards, I do have an idea:

Up to this point, the C clef studies have been used to practice only one procedure, that of reading the notes on the clef literally. Once this is as steady as a rock, we can start introducing additional complications to help with different subjects. When transposing a line, we can mentally substitute a clef and a key signature to play in a different key at sight. However, we will usually have to shift up or down an octave from where the clef normally would indicate. We'll go through this process in greater detail later, but suffice to say that once we start transposing with clefs, we have to start imagining things that aren't really there. It's not just a literal reading process; now it has an imaginary element. The one lesson we should take from this is: one should completely master the real, literal process of reading before adding extra imaginary elements. These techniques hinge on a mastery of the normal reading of these clefs.

And I think that's all to be said about that. 



The Culmination of Clefs and the Future of Figures

The Culmination of Clefs

 

Well, Christmas has come early this year. A few months ago I started working through the Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading as an aid to learning to read the C clefs (Alto, Tenor, and Soprano specifically) and set myself the goal of reaching Chapter K by Christmas time, and I officially reached it yesterday. Hallelujah!

 

In case I never mentioned it, Chapter K is the moment when the exercises start taking the form of the Fellowship (FAGO) test question in which the organist is asked to sight read an open score in C clefs. The exercises of this book started with two staves, using two different clefs and gradually introduced the Alto, Tenor, and Soprano clefs into the staves, studying each one individually and then in combination with the others. Then a third stave was introduced using differing combinations of C clefs among them. I still recall what a headache three staves was at first, keeping up with the changing clefs in each staff.

 

After this was mastered, we moved onto four staves in a string-quartet sort of style, in which we had two Treble staffs, an Alto staff, and a Bass staff (that often moved into Tenor clef). After the difficulty of four lines at once was passed, we moved to a transitional form where Treble was on top, Alto and Tenor were in the two middle staves, and Bass was on the bottom. Most of these exercises seem to have been taken from late renaissance vocal pieces so it was very enjoyable to work on them.

 

Then we finally hit section K, where all of the exercises have the same layout: 4 staves, Soprano clef on top, then Alto clef, then Tenor clef, and Bass clef on the bottom. This is the standard layout for vocal scores of late renaissance and baroque times, the idea that each voice had its own clef that would minimize the use of ledger lines.

 

I recall attempting this section several times earlier on and those attempts ranged in quality from total failure, to extreme awkwardness. I just couldn't keep four lines continuous in my mind all with differing points of reference given by the clefs. As it stands today, I play rather cautiously but without much difficulty. With further practice over the next three years (till it's time to take the test) I should be reading it with ease. Of course, I will have to find new practice material beyond this book now, but I have a sort of plan:

 

I'll begin with taking the Chorale Harmonizations of Bach and find a copy which has them in this open score format and I'll practice sight reading at least one a day for a time until they become pretty easy. After that point, I'm not exactly sure what the best option will be; perhaps I should read through the vocal parts of some of his Cantatas as they are a much more active style than simple chorales. I do know that eventually I must find a copy of the Art of Fugue in this open score and practice reading from that; this was suggested by members of the AGO in regards to this particular test. Past sight-reading excerpts were actually from the Art of Fugue but are no longer. Still, the practice will put the finishing touches on this skill.

 

Some final thoughts on the process: I still think that slow practice, as usual, is the proper way to work on these exercises. One thing that I think took time to really assimilate into the mind was the relationships that these clefs had to each other. To think of each clef as a totally independent way of writing music was not a proper one to have, and I came to realize that each clef was actually a way of seeing the same thing from a slightly different angle. An E below middle C is still going to be in the space between two lines, whether it's in the bass clef, or the tenor. Another way of thinking about it is that these clefs cause some lines on the staff to become invisible and others to become visible. Maybe I can produce an awesome graphic of this concept some time but I have little time today. Once I become quite secure with all the exercises in the book, I can start using these clefs to work on transposition. Of course I'll still need to learn the Mezzo-Soprano and Baritone clefs, the only useful clefs remaining, but most of the work is already done. I feel like I can see and comprehend much more at a glance than I could when I started this. I think better with this skill. That alone has made the work worth it.

 

After focusing rather intently on this particular study for so long, I think it's time to start planning where that focus will drift to next, since the majority of this work is now achieved. I think that the next subject shall be...

 

the Future of Figures

 

Figured Bass, Thorough-bass, whatever you want to call it. The Associate test requires the organist to sight read a passage from figured bass to accompany a melody line played by the proctor. That's fine, as far as it goes, but the study of the figures and how to realize that bass line into music can teach a great many things about composition, analysis, and improvisation.

 

I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking about this recently but I have had some time to consider what should be learned in this practice.

 

Superficially, we are learning what the various figures mean and how to produce them as chords on the keyboard. If we dig a little deeper, we find that we are learning more than how to turn numbers into notes. In the practice books I have on the subject, we practice common cadences in all keys as well as sequences, and then we work out exercises using the figures being studied.

 

We begin with root position chords, chords that have no figures beneath them. Then we throw in first inversion chords using the figure 6, and then second inversion using 64, then the various figures for suspensions, then the seventh chords and their inversions.

 

If that is all that is learned, then you are learning just a simple system of encoding a lot of musical information that's not too specific, into a small area. That's a valuable thing by itself. I'm pretty sure it's not too easy to find good continuo players these days...

 

However, I believe there is more to it. I think that Figured Bass is another way to learn and fully assimilate music theory at the keyboard, as long as you keep your eyes open. We begin to see the functions of various chords within the key, what chords follow others, how cadences are constructed and elaborated. That is to say, we are given an intermediary step towards a sort of 'reckoning' of how a chord functions in context, how it can be approached and left. This soft of subconscious knowledge will be of great help in composition and improvisation, and also in interpretation and memorization of repertoire.

 

One should keep in mind that this isn't like studying for a test; we don't verbally memorize facts, data, and relationships, we must rather form that subconscious 'reckoning' of how these ephemeral entities behave.

 

So how do we do that?

 

I believe it's pretty simple, actually. We are again heeding the previous advice of not attacking a problem too directly and simply seeking to memorize the information from our theory textbook. Our method will be simply:  Repetition    in     all keys. Repetition of what? Examples of the different functions of a chord in different situations, that is: Cadences and Sequences.

 

So, put succinctly, we will absorb subconscious knowledge of chords behaviors by:

 

Repetition of Cadences and Sequences in all keys. Cadences and Sequences are essential elements of the Common Practice period, and contain most of the regular functions of chords within a key, and we can cull examples from various Thorough-bass books as well as theory textbooks. The repetition element doubly serves to let the functional concept be fully assimilated and also to understand that relationship within all different keys. Again, slow practice and concentration on understanding the relationships of the chords within the fragment are essential. This should be followed by a faster tempo for the sake of muscle memory in the fingers. Slow practice for the mind, quick practice for the fingers. I think that for guidance in this area, we will benefit the most from a man from the period; therefore we will start our search for guidance with C.P.E. Bach with his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments.

 

As we learn a language, so we learn music: by observation and repetition of the sounds and grammar, not just in isolation but in context. A word of caution though: one does not master a language through observation and repetition alone, but through actually speaking on your own. In the same manner, we must turn our hand to improvisation and composition at some point. We will see when that point is, after some practice with thorough-bass.