Was my teacher a fraud?

[trevcda]

I can probably just google it, but for the sake of discussion, what instruments use alto and tenor clefs? I can only think of viola.

Ran across it frequently playing bassoon.

Are you sure it was Berklee and not Berkeley?

Yeah, attending Rhodes College in Tennessee, does not make you a Rhodes Scholar.

 

[fishdreams]

I can probably just google it, but for the sake of discussion, what instruments use alto and tenor clefs? I can only think of viola.

The Peters edition transposed for bass of the Bach Cello Suites jumps to a tenor clef here and there.

 

[tpaul]

Maybe your teacher got a degree from Berklee in engineering? Or music management? Or dance?

 

[Koshchei]

He liked to mention that he was a graduate of Berklee. He also said that he had never learned to read treble clef.

I never thought much of it until years later when I took my first college music theory class. You couldn't pass this introductory class without reading both bass and treble clefs. It then occurred to me that how could anybody graduate Berklee and not be able to read the treble clef?

If he can read bass clef, he can read treble clef. Just transpose everything up a line.

Still, how did he learn the melodies of the standards? Everybody but horn players buy the C treble clef version of the Real Book.

 

[Pings Bass]

He liked to mention that he was a graduate of Berklee. He also said that he had never learned to read treble clef.

I never thought much of it until years later when I took my first college music theory class. You couldn't pass this introductory class without reading both bass and treble clefs. It then occurred to me that how could anybody graduate Berklee and not be able to read the treble clef?

I can read treble clef on winds and piano, but it's a struggle on the bass. Maybe that's what he meant.

 

[BD Jones]

Really? They’re expected to be able to sight read in alto and tenor clef as well as bass and treble? That seems unlikely to me.

I was, and I didn't go to Berklee. In fact, we had to sightread on all wind instruments while reading a different instrument's music (like playing French horn while reading the tuba line; clarinet while reading the alto sax line; etc). I use those skills every day. We also had to do this with string and wind instruments. Sightreading on French horn or alto sax while reading the viola line is fun!

 

[Pings Bass]

Really? They’re expected to be able to sight read in alto and tenor clef as well as bass and treble? That seems unlikely to me.

If he can read bass clef, he can read treble clef. Just transpose everything up a line.

The thing about the clefs is they're all about intervals. You can find your reference from the clef symbol itself and/or key signature, and then there's literally no difference. Just motor memory connecting a note to your fingers.

 

[BassinCT]

Berklee isn’t the School of Rock. being able to read and write both bass and treble clefs is required to get through any college music degree program.

 

[Jeff Hughes]

He was Berklee adjacent. He took lessons from someone who went there. He could have gone there but not graduated.

 

[jerry]

That said, did he improve your playing?

 

[g-dude]

If he can read bass clef, he can read treble clef. Just transpose everything up a line.

Still, how did he learn the melodies of the standards? Everybody but horn players buy the C treble clef version of the Real Book.

Umm. I bought bass clef myself.

 

[Beetfarm615]

He liked to mention that he was a graduate of Berklee. He also said that he had never learned to read treble clef.

I never thought much of it until years later when I took my first college music theory class. You couldn't pass this introductory class without reading both bass and treble clefs. It then occurred to me that how could anybody graduate Berklee and not be able to read the treble clef?

Really would depend on his major there.

He liked to mention that he was a graduate of Berklee. He also said that he had never learned to read treble clef.

I never thought much of it until years later when I took my first college music theory class. You couldn't pass this introductory class without reading both bass and treble clefs. It then occurred to me that how could anybody graduate Berklee and not be able to read the treble clef?

I would be interested in his major. Conceivable that his exposure to treble clef reading might be limited if he were an engineering/production major for instance. They’re not required to take as many performance/reading/improv/private lessons.

 

[bass12]

The thing about the clefs is they're all about intervals. You can find your reference from the clef symbol itself and/or key signature, and then there's literally no difference. Just motor memory connecting a note to your fingers.

I get messed up sight reading anything other than bass clef (granted my sight reading for bass clef isn’t that great either). I can decipher other clefs (e.i. read slowly) but that’s it.

 

[WillyW]

Be sure to confront him, then run away crying...

 

[thabassmon]

He liked to mention that he was a graduate of Berklee. He also said that he had never learned to read treble clef.

I never thought much of it until years later when I took my first college music theory class. You couldn't pass this introductory class without reading both bass and treble clefs. It then occurred to me that how could anybody graduate Berklee and not be able to read the treble clef?

I don't know how anyone could graduate from Berklee without being able to read Treble and Bass clef.

Sounds like fraud to me.

 

[fdeck]

There are stories out there about people in virtually every field, who didn't master the basics of their field. Famously, employers like Google and Facebook give "coding interviews" to computer science graduates, to find out if they can actually program. Truth be told, you can sneak your way through a degree program with gaps in your training, and it doesn't happen all that often, but it can happen.

I know a few people who are Berklee grads, and many more who are music school grads. One got through a couple years at Berklee before his reading problems caught up with him. They were partly cognitive. He could see perfectly well, but he couldn't see music if it was on one side of his field of vision.

But also, there are different levels of reading. There's reading in a theory class, there's sight reading, and there's sight reading difficult material cold in a chaotic gig situation. Like many other skills, reading ability atrophies if it isn't used, and there aren't much chances to keep up with any reading, much less treble clef, on the bass. I have been extremely lucky to have played in bands where reading was necessary, so I have managed to keep up my reading chops.

But I struggle with treble clef. Right now I'm trying to learn how to play jazz on the cello, and I decided that I would read everything in treble, just to get that portion of my brain working once again. I haven't read treble and tenor since high school.

There was a bandleader in my locale who wrote his trombone parts in tenor clef, and it always took players for a loop because they thought it was just going to be an easy gig playing dance music, and very few of them had kept up with tenor clef.

 

[basscase666]

That said, did he improve your playing?

I was new to the bass when I started my lessons with this teacher. He taught me a few things that were useful, but mostly he was just a talking head. He would assign me lessons and never follow up. If I would play what he assigned in the previous lesson, I could do no more than play a few notes before he would say, "you nailed it" and then he would continue talking for the rest of the lesson. After six months (when I quit), I said to my friends, "thanks to my teacher, I now know everything about the bass guitar except how to play it."

The one thing that I got from this teacher that I'm grateful for is that he moved me out of my 4-string P bass into a 5 string with a 35" scale. Now that's all I will play (fretless and fretted), after trying a fretted 6 and 7 string.

The way I learned to play bass was from watching the Warner Bros. Roscoe Beck videos. They were infinitely more instructive than my six months of lessons with my teacher. Watching these videos gave me the confidence to try out for, and be accepted by, a blues/rock band, and we played a few clubs. Now I'm learning jazz and hope to join a jazz combo when the pandemic subsides. So there's my story in a nutshell.

 

[hbarcat]

Claiming you graduated with a degree in music from top level music college "without ever learning the treble clef" is like saying you earned a degree in engineering from MIT without ever learning to solve algebraic equations.

 

[AxtoOx]

I have some swampland in Kansas for sale cheap?

 

[Ed Fuqua]

I was new to the bass when I started my lessons with this teacher. He taught me a few things that were useful, but mostly he was just a talking head. He would assign me lessons and never follow up.

This is of more concern than his statement about reading treble clef. This is just evidence of being a bad teacher.

The way I learned to play bass was from watching the Warner Bros. Roscoe Beck videos. They were infinitely more instructive than my six months of lessons with my teacher. Watching these videos gave me the confidence to try out for, and be accepted by, a blues/rock band, and we played a few clubs. Now I'm learning jazz and hope to join a jazz combo when the pandemic subsides. So there's my story in a nutshell.

Well any time a TV is more "instructive" than an actual person should tell you all you need to know about the actual person. I wouldn't let it sour you on learning face to face though. Particularly if you want to play jazz, the skill sets involved don't need to be learned from a bassist. Find a good jazz pianist who is also a good teacher and listen to a lot of records.