Posted by Art H on January 31, 2002 at 00:27:45:
In Reply to: Re: piano line transposition posted by Rick Denney on January 30, 2002 at 10:33:20:
Many years ago I realized that most of the songs I wished I could play were in the fakebooks, in treble clef. So I went to work on learning to read out of a fakebook. Believe it or not, most of the good melodies in this world are not in bass clef. Eventually I discovered a hidden benefit: now I can read a Bach cello suite (for example) which is already in bass clef but too high to be comfortable by pretending it's in treble clef and either adding four flats or two sharps. So if the original is in G I can play it in Eb, no sweat. Or if the original is in Ab (bass clef) I can play it in F. I can also read a treble clef part as written (except for octave shift) OR I can pretend it's bass clef and add three flats (which brings it up a minor third) or add four sharps to transpose it up a major third. Reading has never been my strong point, but this one tool has many uses.