Posted by Jay Bertolet on May 05, 1999 at 16:49:47:
In Reply to: Eb Fingering Confusion posted by JRTapes on May 05, 1999 at 15:55:47:
The confusion on this topic is easily solved. Just take an example. Say you are looking at an Eb treble clef tuba part from a brass band. That means that middle C is written to sound a concert Eb pitch. But envision the note in your mind. Middle C treble clef looks the same as E(b) on the bass clef staff. This happy coincidence means that if you can manage to change the key signature so that you're playing in the same scale (in this case, add 3 flats) you can read the music as bass clef. The only trick is understanding that the bass clef version is in "C" bass clef, as in what you see is what you hear. This doesn't work for Bb treble clef as the transposition is different than Eb treble clef. In fact, the work around for Bb treble clef is that it reads just like tenor clef.
To understand these things I always try to take one example and see how it works out as a model for further application. Good luck with this very mental exercise!