Learning bass clef quickly and efficiently?

Question

Here's the situation: I've been playing flute at school for about four years and oboe for about six months, so all I've ever learned is treble clef. However, this year for marching band, I volunteered to play sousaphone due to a lack of brass players. My director said to just worry about fingerings for now and that they'd help me with actually getting the notes when we got to band camp (I JUST started working on tuba at the end of school and so am self-teaching.) Problem is, I'm having a lot of trouble learning bass clef and I can't start the fingerings until I do that. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to quickly and efficiently learn bass clef? I really need to have this all worked out for our pre-band camp rehearsal on July 16th. TIA!

Answer 1

I had the same problem. I was playing guitar for  5 years and then switched to piano which obviously has a bass clef to it. I had the same question, and really the best approach to this is go over easy songs that use the bass clef often. Say the names of the notes as you play them out loud, and keep doing this for several songs until you have it perfect. Then go back after 3 days and do it again so you wont forget. It involves work, but now I can easily read teh bass clef.

Answer 2

HI Davina.   Flute player?  Good choice!!  :)  Well you have other problems now though..    Ok...  let's look at the treble staff.   It actually starts on an E and following up the staff we begin to complete the alphabet notes right??  E F G A B C D E F.....  those are the notes that are on the lines and spaces.   For the bass clef... take a look at some music with bass clef...   this starts on the first line (the bottom line) on a    

G.   Now we do the same procedure and complete the notes by alphabet...  G A B C D E F G A  -  Notes that are on the line.....   G B D F A   and Notes in the spaces... A

C E G .  The first note above the top lineA  is a B and then back to C and as a flute player,  you are well familiar with the C.. Right?   Well there you go... you just have to get a sheet of music that has the Bass Clef and practice learning the notes by remembering the alphabet and starting with the G.  Hope that helps.  Thanks for reading.

Flute Teacher and Piano Player.

Answer 3

Okay, yeah. I freaked out the same way when my teacher handed me the bassoon six months ago. I'd already been used to clarinet and tenor sax, but he told me to worry about the fingerings and music will come later. Truth was we were already handing out music for the Spring concert. So I absolutely flipped over Winter Break and had a huge mental breakdown. I was about to hand it back to him until I went to see the movie August Rush. In it, the little girl tries to teach the boy piano. For the bass clef hand she said "All Cars Eat Gas" instead of "FACE" for the in between notes. After that it all started to click for me. Hope it helps!!!

Answer 4

This method will take 1 hour, 2 times per day for a week.  At that point you will be fluent.

Make flash cards.  The staff with a note on one side, the name of the note on the other.  Don't worry about any accidentals - they're easy to learn later.

Make sure you make your flash cards in bass clef in the range of a tuba.  At least from low Bb to Bb above the staff.  Concentrate on the pitches below Eb (3rd space) but learn it all.  You can add higher and lower ledger lines later.  

Do your cards every day, twice each day.  Your goal is to recognize the note on the page as soon as you see it and not to have to count it up with things like "All cows eat grass" (the spaces) and "Good boys do fine always" (the lines) because tuba reads off the staff a lot.

You want to look at that second space and just know that's a C.  You want to just know that the space below the staff is an F.  It's the best way to be fluent right from the start.

From flute, fingerings will be the least of your worries.  Embouchure tension and breath support are where you're going to have to practice.  You can play a lot of pitches on a tuba with no valves pressed.