I am learning fast about trombones but have barely scratched the surface.
Jamie plays in two groups which are likely to give him bass clef music plus a brass band which will give him treble clef.
It seems sensible for him to learn bass clef.
I could take the treble clef music and transpose it for him, and teach him to transpose it for himself.
Or I could just make him learn both. His teacher was explaining that if he thought of the treble clef as being the tenor clef that he would be fine.
Jamie is 13 and is currently preparing for his Grade 4 piano so is used to both clefs. I realise that it is more complicated than the piano.
I'd love to know what people suggest.
Thanks
Dora

I don't know anything about brass instruments, but treble clef and tenor clef are totally different. On treble clef, middle C is on the line one ledger line below the bottom of the stave. On tenor clef, middle C is on the 4th line up from the bottom of the stave.

Have a look at this http://musictheoryonline.co.uk/clefintro.htm for the different clefs (sorry, I don't know how to do a link!).

Edit: it seems to have randomly linked it without me trying (but never has before when I've put in web addresses!)

Yes but that actually helps because the trombone is a transposing instrument in Bb. If he looks at the treble clef on the trombone as a tenor clef the music works.
Thanks
Dora

I'm not a brass player and really don't understand why they make life difficult for themselves Why be a Bb instrument in treble clef and a C instrument in bass.

Having said that it will be much easier for him in the long run to be able to read both. He will be much more versatile as a player and will be able to sightread whatever gets thrown at him.

Yes, definitely learn both properly.

I play tuba so have the same issue, and as I started on trumpet and moved over to tuba I have always "thought" in treble clef and went down the transposition/adding sharps etc route. I am now grade 8 standard (hopefully, don't know result yet) and it has only just stopped becoming an issue, I can safely say that my sight reading abilities are about the same for each clef now but I wish I had started by learning bass clef properly.

From the 15th to the 19th C, trombone parts were usually written in the clef that corresponded to the instrument that the composer expected the player to use: bass clef for bass trombone, tenor clef for tenor trombone, alto clef for alto trombone. The use, in the brass band, of treble clef transposed up a ninth made it easier for players of baritone horn or euphonium (both instruments that are the same length as the tenor trombone) to transfer to trombone: all they had to do was remember the correspondence between the fingering on their old instrument and the slide position on the new one. However, when I last played in a brass band, c. 1951, we still had quite a lot of music in which tenor trombone played from tenor clef and bass trombone from bass clef. The point about thinking of Bb transposing treble as tenor clef is that the notes are on the same lines in both notations: however, one has to modify the key signature, and sometimes the accidentals, mentally. For instance, if the piece is in the key of Bb, two flats will appear in the key signature of the tenor clef part, but none in the treble part, and if a C# appears on the second space of the treble part, that must become a B natural on the tenor stave.
Since 1951, most orchestral trombone players use an instrument with a valve (called a plug) worked by the left thumb. This instrument is capable of playing both tenor and bass trombone parts, although a serious bass trombone player (especially a professional) would have an instrument with two valves and a larger bore. I suspect that the trend towards use of bass clef for all trombone parts is because of the versatility of the modern plug tenor. However, not all composers have been quick to follow the trend: trombones 1 and 2 in the score of Shostakovich's 10th symphony are in alto clef.

The Bb tranposition convention originally comes from trumpets and horns being derived from natural (i.e valveless) instruments - the only way for them to play in different keys was to add extra bits of tubing (crooks) to take the trumpet or horn down to the key of the piece. Trumpets were mostly in D, but could be crooked down to Bb, but were mostly notated in C major (whatever key the trumpet was in), with the result that the difficult out-of-tune notes (the 11th & 13th harmonics) always appeared as the same notated notes (F & A at the top/above the stave).

Once trumpets, cornets and horns got valves in the 19th Century, the same principle was maintained, that the basic open harmonic series was notated in C, so the fingering for the notated scale of C is the same, no matter what the key the instrument is pitched in. Brass bands inherited this tradition; trombones, being born out of a different system didn't have this tradition, but have partially succumbed to it in brass bands.

If I start someone on euphonium or trombone, I always check whether they are intending mainly to play in a brass band or other context, as that does colour my judgement for the appropriate clef for initial learning.

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I sympathize with these comments.
It really is about time that the Brass Band movement joined the mainstream musical ensemble world and stopped treating Trombones, Euphoniums and Tubas as transposing instruments. They are concert pitch instruments and play in the bass clef. The perpetual use of placing them in the treble clef, thereby making them transposing instruments is historic. It is time to move on. There are fewer pit and factory bands now requiring deputising at rehearsals when other players were on shift. Brass Bands have moved into local communities.
So how can change be made? In the first place, responsible publishers of Brass Band music should start printing alternative bass clef parts for these instruments on the rear of the existing treble clef parts. ABRSM, you could suggest this and it would certainly get the ball rolling. Secondly, problems start at school level. Trombone, Euphonium and Tuba students are taught in the bass clef with a view to them becoming players in the school's Orchestras, Wind Bands and Big Bands. When they are then invited to join a local Brass Band they should ask for their parts to be transposed to bass clef. The more students that have the temerity to do this, the better. Finally, I would suggest that the ABRSM could play a lead roll in this logical transition by clearly making the point to the Brass Band movement that it is time for change.

Rodney Parker FTCL ARCM

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I sympathize with these comments.
It really is about time that the Brass Band movement joined the mainstream musical ensemble world and stopped treating Trombones, Euphoniums and Tubas as transposing instruments. They are concert pitch instruments and play in the bass clef. The perpetual use of placing them in the treble clef, thereby making them transposing instruments is historic. It is time to move on. There are fewer pit and factory bands now requiring deputising at rehearsals when other players were on shift. Brass Bands have moved into local communities.
So how can change be made? In the first place, responsible publishers of Brass Band music should start printing alternative bass clef parts for these instruments on the rear of the existing treble clef parts. ABRSM, you could suggest this and it would certainly get the ball rolling. Secondly, problems start at school level. Trombone, Euphonium and Tuba students are taught in the bass clef with a view to them becoming players in the school's Orchestras, Wind Bands and Big Bands. When they are then invited to join a local Brass Band they should ask for their parts to be transposed to bass clef. The more students that have the temerity to do this, the better. Finally, I would suggest that the ABRSM could play a lead roll in this logical transition by clearly making the point to the Brass Band movement that it is time for change.

Rodney Parker FTCL ARCM

1. Its music is written in treble clef transposing to make it possible for a euphonium* or baritone horn player to take over a trombone part if a trombone player is absent. Also, if a player of another brass instrument moves onto trombone s/he gets a head start with slide positions because they have a one-to-one relationship with the fingerings of the valved instruments: 0 -> 1, 2 -> 2, 1 -> 3, 12 -> 4, 23 -> 5, 13 - 6, 123 -> 7

* This is another instrument with a dual personality: treble clef, Bb transposed in the brass band; bass clef, concert pitch in the orchestra, where it is called a tenor tuba.

I agree.

If your son is serious about going far with the Trombone, he will have to learn to play using both, plus the Tenor, Alto and C Treble clefs.

If he is in a BC-reading band and a TC-reading band, he is getting the best sort of grounding and will pick it up much quicker.

It is probably better to learn them in tandem as there will only be greater resistance later on if he is 'one-sided'.

At what sort of level are trombonists supposed to be familiar with all the clefs? My daughter (currently learning in France) wants to do her sixth form in England in two years' time. She has only ever played in the bass clef (she plays in an orchestra, a wind band and a brass band). Would trombonists in sixthforms in English schools be happy to play in any clef?

She reads the tenor clef for the cello so could, presumably, transfer this knowledge to the trombone if necessary. She can also read the treble clef fluently as all her theory and singing is done in the treble clef but she couldn't read and transpose at the same time.

Tenor clef would help for trombone treble clef also, because of its being transposed in the brass band. The sounds that come out are those on the same line or space in concert pitch tenor clef. This means that the player can mentally add two flats to the key signature of a treble clef part and treat it as tenor. Accidentals are a complicating factor, but in much brass band music they are fairly uncommon.

Players of Eb bass tuba who are familiar with transposed parts in treble clef use the same process in reverse when confronted with a concert pitch part in bass clef;* they have to subtract three flats (or add three sharps).

* Often named "Bombardon"

We brass players have so much fun, with all this transposing lark, don't we??

My favourite (NOT) is transposing Horn in B...second movt of Brahms 2 ...for hn in F.(mentally going down an augmented 4th!!!!!)

Strong recommendation, from one of the horn mailing lists: if you're playing the first part, memorise the big solo, and anything else that is exposed.

A (not so) fun transposition I had to do was Trumpet in E parts on my Bb! Up a tritone! Urgh...