@MuseChaser I appreciate your response and your willingness to expand on the topic at hand, but regretfully I feel that my statement may have been the subject of some misunderstanding. Please allow me to elaborate a bit:
I apologize for the slight thread drift, but the C clef is MORE than alive and well in the form of alto and tenor clefs, although baritone clef has become quite unusual. Violists read alto clef from day one and it's their "home base" clef. Bassoonists, trombonists, cellists, and yes, bassists (orchestral or solo DB) all routinely read tenor clef in advanced and orchestral literature, and treble clef appears quite frequently in advanced cello, bass, and viola literature. Heck, some orchestral literature calls for alto trombone in the first trombone part, written in alto clef
Certainly, C clefs are still commonly found in the notation of much the classical literature that is frequently programmed, particularly among the instruments you mentioned. I spent a lot of time studying classical music as a youth, and although I mainly play the bass now in non-classical musical contexts and learned bass in a less-than-traditional way, much of my classical training was on the (French) horn, perhaps the most annoying of the instruments with transposing parts!
Despite roughly 200 years worth of valve and rotor technology that has enabled brass instruments to progress past the comparatively primitive practices of using crooks and hand stopping, and instead function truly chromatically, it is still common for music written up through the early to mid 19th centuries to have any number of horn parts still written in their original form, that of various transpositions as though they were being played on the natural (aka rotor-less) horn. "Horn in F" is the standard and has been for any more recently written music (as in, I have seen less and less of anything other than "Horn in F" for more recent music, and transposing horn parts are all but nonexistent in contemporary music), but some of those older parts are written, if
Invalid Link Removed is accurate, in any of up to 14 different transpositions. I encountered many of these in my time as a horn player but not all.
To say this is cumbersome is, in my opinion, an understatement, and my experience with it is a big part of what underpins my stance that the practice of music notation has some unnecessary redundancies that most of us would be better off without, and that includes C clef transpositions.
As far as the C clef being "outdated" and "persist(ing) largely out of the classical world’s commitment to traditions from earlier periods that are still taught in many conservatories....," that's just not accurate. Students good enough to be accepted and virtually any conservatory will already know how to read those clefs, so perhaps the word "taught" could be replaced by "expected" or "employed," I guess. As far as "from earlier periods" goes, there's PLENTY of modern "classical" (not the period, but the popular version of the term meaning "legit" or written orchestral/chamber/solo music) that utilizes the C clef. ALL standard viola literature, ALL string quarters, pretty much ALL advanced string bass and cello etude books and literature, etc.
I do want to make clear that C Clef
transpositions are what I take umbrage with here as opposed to the practice of a C clef as default clef (which is just limited to the just viola, right?) Alto clef, being the the clef that falls smack in the middle of the grand staff, is one that could be argued to have some practical uses, and absolutely does make sense as the default clef for the viola given that instrument's range.
Again, your above statement checks out to me as an accurate description of current classical music practices with which I am familiar. I recognize that for those who study bassoon, trombone, cello or bass and want to play classical music at a high level, not to mention professionally, it is a requirement to have proficiency in reading the clefs that are regularly found throughout the essential literature for their instrument. I really do believe, however, that the need to do this within the classical realm is not so much a practical consideration but rather is mostly a product of conservatory traditions that date back to the mid 19th century when C clefs were still very much in fashion. Conservatories today are largely what is driving the long look backwards to past musical practices - all the way to Bach and even earlier than him - and trying to keep them alive, quirks and all, in the present day. I find that the classical world does this more than just about any other form of Western music still in regular performance. (Even jazz and rock are becoming institutionalized to a greater or lesser extent thanks to university and community programs that support those musical traditions, but they are still a long way off from the classical conservatory system).
Regarding "standard literature" - I haven't played a lot of highly advanced classical music written within the last 50 years or so. Are we still seeing C clefs being frequently employed by living composers for solo, orchestral and chamber literature, and are there any contemporary method books that make substantial use of C clefs for bassoon, trombone, cello and/or bass? I am admittedly uninformed here, though my limited experience here has not been one where I've encountered anything but bass clef.
Again, what I am arguing is that our current practice of notating music has redundancies that could theoretically be done away with. There's precedent for it too, as certain historically popular clefs have fallen out of use before. The example of that phasing out of transposing horn parts and standardization of "horn in F" as a response to the chromatic-ization of brass instruments is one such instance. I am far from an expert on the subject of choral music, and feel free to correct any unintended misinformation, but to cite another example - in the 19th century it was very common for vocal music to be written in a variety of the 5 C clefs - not just alto and tenor (and baritone as you mentioned before), but mezzo soprano (C on line 2) and soprano (C on line 1). How frequently is this used today, especially in new music? The contemporary choir literature I have performed has all been the same - soprano and alto in treble clef, tenor in treble clef 8vb, and basses in bass clef.
Let's get even more obscure. Do we need to mention French violin clef (G on the first line) or sub-bass clef (F on line 5)? How often do these clefs get encountered outside of a music history textbook?
The difference between alto and tenor clef is, in my opinion, splitting hairs. We're quite literally talking about the difference between middle C being on the 3rd line versus middle C on the 4th. To really get good at reading even one of those clefs, though, requires spending some serious time in the shed doing a lot of sight reading. Why do we need both, other than "because that's how we've been doing it for the last 150-200 years"? What better rationale is there?
My point is that, despite how entrenched and ossified some of our traditions seem, things do change, and they should when it makes sense to do so. Again, this is just my opinion and I don't expect everyone to agree, but the vast majority of us would be better served by a standardized notation system that is notated in concert pitch, largely utilizes the grand staff with octave transpositions as needed, and employs alto clef when it is practical, i.e. to moderate the use of ledger lines while minimizing the need to switch clefs too often.
I apologize for the pedantry, but we all come here to learn new things (me too... I'm a comparative idiot in terms of bass guitar electronics and techniques) and I hate to see misinformation that may steer folks wrong. I will agree that knowing tenor clef, for the vast majority of non-"classical" bass guitarists (which, of course, is most BG players) and DB players who don't routinely read advanced literature, may not be a frequently used skill. However, those clefs are far from "dead" or esoteric.
Again, to clarify, I was stating an opinion specifically about the use of C clefs as transposing clefs for instruments who use bass clef as the default clef. I was certainly not trying to spread misinformation, and I think I may understand why you may have been concerned. Many of us on here may not be aware of some of the less common music notation practices still in regular use in certain spheres of the classical world and my opinion could be confusing to someone who doesn't know where I'm coming from. The last thing I would want is for some young musician just starting to get serious about learning classical music being handed something in tenor clef by their teacher, stumbling across my post, and saying to themselves (or worse, their teacher!) "C clefs are dumb, I'm not going to learn this". No - if you want a shot at that orchestra job, learn your clefs.
I also know that our current traditions and ways of reading the many, many different iterations of notation still out there (not to mention all of the other transposing wind instruments.... yeesh) are so strongly entrenched that we are unlikely to see any drastic changes to a more streamlined system, despite the many benefits that I think there would be to one. But my opinion, having been informed by 30+ years of reading, writing, and teaching music on various instruments, is what it is. We could do a heck of a lot better than we currently are.
