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Transitioning to Bass Clef

K

katysax

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Nov 5, 2012
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#1
I can sight read treble clef very well. It's like I read treble clef at the college level and bass clef like a beginning first grader. I can look at a chart written in treble clef and find the notes comfortably, even on the bass, but when it comes to the bass clef I am sounding out the notes like a beginner. This is a huge gulf as I am 65 years old and have played treble clef instruments since I was 8 years old. I know the notes, but I can't stop translating. It's helpful when playing bass to be able to read lead sheets in treble clef, but there are times I'd like to be able to actually play a bass chart.

This must be something people who play other instruments (but not piano) struggle with when they learn the bass. I'm wondering how this can be overcome.

Maybe my problem is that I'm just learning notes and playing out of instruction books. Bass is not exactly a melody instrument, but I've ordered the Real Christmas Book in Bass Clef. Since I know most of the melodies maybe I can play through those songs a few times and get some reading practice trying to make associate playing with music that easily makes sense to me. It's like I "think" in treble clef and maybe with practice it will trip a switch and I'll be able to "think" in bass clef too.
 
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#2
I have a same problem. I went to music school 35 years ago and played flute, only for 3 years.
Treble clef got so stuck in my mind that I always calculate notes in bass clef using treble clef as guidance.
Only when I train bass clef (using some phone applications) it gets to me, but after a short pause, treble clef becomes dominant again.
 
#3
I had a similar problem. Played saxophone in high school (is that where your nic comes from?), and always read treble clef music only. On bass initially I was using tabs a lot and then playing by ear or off chord charts, not full notation. I mostly play in cover bands where you're not using sheet music anyway. But I do also play in church, and sometimes we're playing off hymnal pages. I never found any particular trick to it. Just remember it's one line off what you think it is, and apart from that just repetition till you get used to it.
 
#5
katysax said:
.....Maybe my problem is that I'm just learning notes and playing out of instruction books. Bass is not exactly a melody instrument, but I've ordered the Real Christmas Book in Bass Clef.
Click to expand...
And you will get the tune (melody) in bass clef. OK then you will be able to play the tune, problem being the solo instruments play the tune and we are an accompaniment instrument. Our job is to provide harmony and rhythm. We do that playing notes of the harmonizing chord.

The only time I play a melody is when I get a lead break. And the lead electric guitar takes all our lead breaks. So I stopped worrying about playing melody years ago. We play notes of the harmonizing chord to the beat of the drummer's kick drum. So I really do not need sheet music with the bass clef shown. What I need is some sheet music with the chords shown.

Why? Main reason is I have yet to have a director hand me a sheet of standard notation sheet music. It's always fake chord. So I kinda need to be able to play from fake chord or lead sheets. See that the active chord is a Cmaj7 and it is active for two measures. So I compose a bass line that will fit that situation. How? I know that a Cmaj7 chord is made of the 1-3-5-7 notes of the C major scale. That Cmaj7 chord was placed at this specific spot in the song to harmonize the melody - so if I play notes of that chord I two will harmonize that part of the melody. Read that again. All I need is to find those scale degree notes on my fretboard and play the notes that fit this specific song. My favorite generic bass line is R-5-8-5. Why? Well every chord has a root note. The 5 is generic to all chords, except for diminished or augmented chords, and the music I play I do not see a lot of diminished or augmented chords used so a 5 is going to work 99% of the time. That 8 is just the root in another octave so R-5-8-5 is a generic bass line that will fit just about anything I'll be playing. Should I need more the correct 3 and 7 are available.

My point in all this --- I use bass clef sheet music to see if there are any runs or fills I can add to the bass line I've already composed from the notes of the active chord. This link will go into detail: How to get started?
 
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#6
Yes. I understand the place of bass. I have been playing bass three years. I compose my bass line from the chords and often use treble clef sheet music for ideas for runs and fills. I want to be able to read bass clef fluently because there are times when there is a written bass part I want to read. An example is big band charts. I also want to be a more complete musician. My feeling is that if I am a bassist I should read bass clef. It's a feeling. There are many skilled musicians who can't read, but that isn't me.

I do play sax. Over the years there have been many situations where I've had a chair over a "better" player because I could read better.
 
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#8
Here's what you need to learn to do: In you mind, when seeing bass clef, shift everything that would be in treble clef down one line or space. For example, a C on the third space in TC is now on the second space in BC. Etc., etc.
 
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#12
I am YOU. Same age, same problem. I took the leap 2 yrs ago and agreed to play in the pit for the musical , All Shook Up. It's Elvis based so I figured if I really screw up and can fake it.
I practiced that score for 1 hr every day for over a month. I was proud of my reading, by that time half was by memory :) But band gigs won over my goal to keep up practice.
A previous post stated bass doesn't play melody but ... I agree with your thoughts, playing melody lines help you to know if you are reading the correct notes. The hardest part I found in the pit was reading RESTS and changing time signatures back and forth during a tune.
GOOD LUCK !
 
#13
katysax said:
This must be something people who play other instruments (but not piano) struggle with when they learn the bass. I'm wondering how this can be overcome.
Click to expand...

Practice is going to be the key. You'll get it, though. I had a bit of a time when I played baritone sax in jazz band in high school, since not only does it read in treble clef, but it's a transposing instrument - playing a low C actually produces an Eb, and a low C in treble clef and Eb in bass clef are both on the first ledger line below the staff. It took me forever to quit reading it in "pseudo-bass" clef, but I did eventually get past it and can now read either one just fine. Tenor clef still gives me a bit of heartburn because I see it so rarely - the only time I ever had to read it was to double some cello parts in the past.

65 or not, just keep reading in bass clef and eventually it'll click for you.
 
#16
I'm the other way used to bass cleff the treble cleff is a bit shady for me. One leger line below the treble cleff is middle C one leger line above the bass cleff is middle C same line same note the bass cleff just continues down below middle C, try not to think of it as something completely different. This is lame but the fastest way i found to really get to know notes was to get blank music sheet and write them out. Start by just having a bunch of random note names even on small cards and write them into the stave, then write arpeggios and intervals like 4th, 5th, 7th and octave. Also practice writing the key signatures in the bass cleff so they are familiar with what you know in the treble cleff. Just to note the bass part written for a piano can be confusing because it is written in actual pitch, bass guitar and double bass parts are actually written an octave above actual sound, this is so the part will sit mostly in the stave and not on a bunch of leger lines, so a piano part may look like it's written with a lot of notes below the range of your instrument when infact its not. Hope some of this helps you.....
 
#17
To me it's like learning to touch type, only harder because we are not as adept at reading notes as letters. Notes have the additional difficulty in that they contain both pitch information and time information.

In learning to sight read bass clef proficiently I purposely put mental blinders on when I did bass lines, making me focus exclusively on the note that I was playing and mentally sounding the note's name as I played it. After tons of practice I was able to "let my fingers do the walking" and shift my focus to prepare for the measures coming up.

I have a little trouble initially when I study music theory and have to do everything in treble clef. As somebody else mentioned, it just takes many, many hours of effort to become proficient with an instrument on bass clef. I too have great respect for piano players who have to play bass clef and treble clef simultaneously.
 
#18
If you make an effort to "just read" the bass clef as the bass clef, it'll eventually become natural for you.

The thing you don't want to do is keep mentally translating it from the treble clef. That'll just create confusion in the long run as well as slow you down. So don't resort to tricks or mental mathematics. Just read it. It's a matter of practice. Eventually GBDFA and ACEG will become as natural and seamless as EGBDF and FACE are.

I started on a treble clef because my first instrument was a clarinet. So it took me awhile to get used to the bass clef. I used to do the "it's two notes up from what you're seeing" trick. Big mistake.

It wasn't until I joined a choral group and ran into things like tenor clefs and Gregorian notation that something finally clicked and it suddenly didn't matter how anything was notated. My brain just shifted gears and I'd read it that way instead.

Make yourself "just read" bass notation and you'll soon just be reading it. Trust me. I didn't think I'd ever be able to at one time either. But I did. And if I can, pretty much anybody else can too.

Luck!
 
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#19
I learned on bass clef for trombone. By High School, I was reading Tenor clef for alto trombone parts, and I was reading all clefs for college theory classes. Then I stopped reading, and eventually playing. Several years later when I started playing again, I couldn't read at all.
Pick up the Hal Leonard beginning bass books if nothing else than for the guided introduction to bass clef and how it relates to the fretboard. As you get more comfortable, Trombone and Euphonium/Baritone etude books are a fantastic resource. Plus they get you out of comfortable string keys and into reading keys like Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db which are common on standards with horns.
 
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#20
Steven Ayres said:
A local big band may be looking for a bass player, it's a great way to get experience with new charts. There's also a Real Book edition all in bass.
Click to expand...

+1 on both of these. I keep playing with a Monday night rehearsal big band just to keep my reading skills sharp and it really works. As to the Real Books, there's now two volumes available. Playing melody not only helps with the reading skills but, for pick-up jazz gigs, having the melody available in bass clef is a really handy crutch for the improvisationally-impaired (me included).
 
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