Extended- Range Basses

[Bilbo]

Just a thought that came to me yesterday when I was looking at an Orchestration book.....

What is the 'industry standard' way for writing/reading staff notation for ERBs? If you just used a bass clef you would, by my reckoning, have about 8 ledger lines at the top and four at the bottom rendering the whole thing unusable.

So, what do you do? Do ERB players use bass and treble clef or bass and tenor/alto clefs or is the area so new that there is no standard.

Just curious.

Edited October 1, 2008 by bilbo230763

[Kiwi]

from my [i]very[/i] limited understanding, both clefs are used.

[Bilbo]

I assme 'both' means bass and treble clefs not tenor/alto clefs?

[endorka]

This matter is not infrequent for double bass notation, as well as extended range basses. When one goes into "thumb position" on the double bass, for example, it is quite commonly notated in the treble clef.

From my own experience, I'd say the bass clef/treble clef combination is most frequent and most likely to generate good results. You occassionally come across music for double bass written in the tenor clef, but these parts seem almost universally despised.

Jennifer

[Bilbo]

I have an old John Patitucci transcriptions book somewhere that uses tenor clef. Didn't get it at the time so that's why I don't play like John Patitucci....

What?