I've been looking at some music that changes from tenor to bass and so forth. The key is in G but when it changes to bass in the middle of a line it has no key signature but the next line which is bass is in G key. This also happens with the tenor clef. Does this mean that if there is no accidental next to the clef anywhere other than the start of line it is then in Cmajor or is it still in G?

You don't get a reinstatement of the key signature for a clef change mid line in piano music so I dare say it's the same for other instruments which change clef.

A clef change doesn't change the key signature - sounds like you are looking at bassoon music!

DS asked me to buy some with precise instructions on key signatures and tenor clef!

I think that the simple instruction is that the key signature is at the start of each line of music and remains the same unless otherwise indicated. If it changed from Gmajor to Cmajor in the middle of the line there would be a natural on the F line to tell you.
Placing a key signature at every clef chhange would make you think there had been a change of key.

How familiar is he with the tenor clef?

As Sbhoa says the key signature is only indicated at the beginning of the line and has nothing to do with the change from tenor clef to bass clef and vice versa. My daughter found it initially found it visually strange that the sharps/flats had moved, even though she knew intellectually that they had to move since the F line, for example, was in a different place in the tenor and bass clefs. (Don't know if I'm making much sense here).

She is cello (not bassoon) and I bought her a book recommended on here called something like "Learning the Tenor Clef" which has the same thing written first in bass clef and then in tenor clef. She is now quite fluent at reading it (or at least knowing which finger to put down where) were as I am still doing silly mental gymnastics to work out the notes (and cursing the book which doesn't at least put the cello part over the top of the piano part in a key I can read).

DS got home and he knew all about the key signature not changing. Musical Nit Wit I am!

Time to stop trying to keep up and just accept your role as an ambulatory wallet. Daughter sends me to the music shop with a note and I hand it over unread.

Glad to see you're still living upto your name!!!



Is there a similar book for changing from Alto to Treble clef? DS has done a bit of treble clef, but will need to be able to change between the two soon!



I tend to ask Teach for the web link and just buy whatever he says!

No idea, but ask on the strings forum - they were the ones who suggested the tenor clef book to me (and my daughter's teacher who is French and didn't know it, wrote down the details to use with her other pupils!)

Mary Cohen's "Viola Quick Change" - published by Faber I think is the standard one for alto to treble clef. It's bright orange - you can't miss it.

I'm often tempted to wonder why viola players can't just use the treble clef transposed at the octave, like double bass players with the bass clef, or descant recorders with the treble but the other way rund. I do know that it's hisotircal, but wonder if there is something in the notion that viola players are a breed unto themselves and the preference for the clef nobody else uses (any more) is just a Viola Thing.

Thanks - just found it on Amazon!



I think that it's quite nice that DS uses a different clef to his friends. It's kind of some mysterious thing to them!

Definitely - it’s all part of the Dark Art of viola playing...