Posted by Scott Norberg on January 12, 2002 at 19:56:44:
I'm playing tuba in a volunteer band, and we just got parts to some Johan de Meij piece (I hope I spelled that right). I can't remember the name, and it wasn't one of the Lord of the Rings pieces. That's not important. I got two tuba parts, one written for tuba in Bb and one for tuba in Eb, and after consulting the score, I saw that in both cases the parts were transposed so written C would be the "fundamental pitch" of a given horn, i.e. the written C on the Eb part was supposed to sound an Eb and the written C on the Bb part should sound a Bb. The funny thing is that the parts were written in bass clef. Are British brass banders expected to learn both bass and treble clefs? If not, does anyone know why these parts are written in bass clef? If they are, why don't they learn bass clef in concert pitch?
Thanks,
Scott