Learning Bass Clef

[jwynia]

OK. So, for the last few months, I've been playing my mandocello one of two "cheater" ways.

1. Just playing mandolin tunes as though the mandocello is tuned like a mandolin.
2. With a capo on the 2nd fret and playing mandolin tunes adjusted by one string.

In both cases, I've been playing music transcribed on the treble clef. At this point, I've got the treble clef pretty well mapped to the mandolin fretboard and the cheater versions of the mandocello fretboard.

But, I'm now wanting to play music I only have transcribed in bass clef.

While I could just muddle along and learn it gradually, like I did with the mandolin and treble clef, I'm looking for a more rapid way to get it locked into my head.

Any suggested techniques for learning this mapping quickly? I don't want this to take months.

[Jim Garber]

I did that years ago when I learned alto clef for mandola. I did it sort of cold turkey and just stopped reading treble clef. Then I put it down for years and forgot how to to read it.

This time around I consulted with a few folks who are able to switch and read both clefs on either mandolin or mandola.

It is funny that my first instrument was piano and you have to learn both treble and bass clefs for that. OTOH the stickler with mandolin & mandola or mandolin & mandocello is that the two instruments are also tuned differently so you have to re-learn the notes. So I just decided to have the mandola in my hand and first become acutely aware of the open strings. Then sort of focus on the notes relative to those strings and play some relatively simple music to read those notes and maybe say them out loud as you play them. It is doable I believe tho I am nowhere as fluent a reader as I am on the mandolin yet, I think it is pretty possible.

[jwynia]

I, too, actually started with the piano. Took 8 years of lessons as a kid, but my last piano lesson was 20+ years ago.

[Beanzy]

My starter on cello was the open strings are the lines.
So top line = open A, middle line = open D, bottom line = open G and the C hangs on two lines below that.
It may sound really basic, but because there's a visual link to the fingerboard it got me up and running quickly as an adult learner back in the early '90s

[tmsweeney]

There is no reason you can't read G clef and play it as is on the mandocello - you'll just naturally be a few octaves below actual pitch. I would not play it the same fingering as mando, but play the actual intended note ( all be it a few octaves down)

I guess I would not try to transpose in my head but read the clef as it is.

One thing that helped me is to get some standard notation or MUSE software ( is free and pretty good),

write a tune like "Redharied boy" or "Old Joe Clark" or maybe something in C like "Billy in the Low Ground" out in Bass clef and then play it on the mandocello.

How is that Sweet Gallatin working out for you ?

[Martin Jonas]

There is no reason you can't read G clef and play it as is on the mandocello - you'll just naturally be a few octaves below actual pitch. I would not play it the same fingering as mando, but play the actual intended note ( all be it a few octaves down)

That won't do you much good if the part you're trying to play is written in bass clef, though -- not all music is available in electronic form for automatic transposition.

I don't have a mandocello, or else I would put a serious effort into sight-reading bass clef. I do, however, play mandocello parts quite regularly on bouzouki tuned down one full step to FCGD. Many of the mandocello parts in orchestral or quartet arrangements don't go down below F at all or not for more than a few isolated notes in an entire piece, which can be lifted by an octave. Also, this tuning allows playing bass flute/recorder parts in four-part harmony as they are usually written in bass clef with F as the lowest note.

What I found was that I can sight-read parts written in bass clef quite easily in that tuning: the open strings fall on the spaces in the bass clef, meaning that I fret the same notes as on mandolin in treble clef, but one string lower (and in a different key -- finger everything as if there were two more sharps than written). It's a cheat of course, but I find it works quite well for me and I have to cheat anyway in some form to play mandocello parts without a mandocello. However, as I said, if I had a mandocello I would work on sightreading bass clef.

It is only after I started playing in FCGD tuning that I realised that for some obscure reason (possibly the same reason in fact), a convention has arisen in parts of the UK folk scene to call a zouk-like instrument in FCGD a "mandocello" -- at least one UK luthier listed a "mandocello" in his range as designed for that tuning.

Martin

[Greg Stec]

What you need is a training aid. One showing all 4 clefs and the notes in relation to each other. Try here: www.irisenterprises.net/mbanner.html .
The one you want is on the RHS of the page. Don't buy it. Just use it. Good luck.

[Jim Garber]

Hah, Greg! I thought that was a concertina fingering diagram.

Those charts are fine for awhile but I think you have to internalize the fingering and the notes. Keep it handy for when you get stuck but don't look at it if you don't have to. Eventually it will become second-nature.

[Greg Stec]

Hah, Greg! I thought that was a concertina fingering diagram.

Those charts are fine for awhile but I think you have to internalize the fingering and the notes. Keep it handy for when you get stuck but don't look at it if you don't have to. Eventually it will become second-nature.

Hi, Jim. I'm NOT gonna say it was easy for me when I took on the m'cello. I knew the bass or "F" clef because I had a strong background from taking piano lessons. My problem was adjusting my knowledge then adapting to the m'cello. The first 5 frets of each string went well for me, but then I had to learn the whole fretboard. That took a few years of dedicated practice with violincello cello books.

There was another mandocello "problem" for me in the beginning and that was the music I was to play. It was either in treble clef or bass clef. I could read both, but I didn't want to. The mandocello is the same 'voice' as the violincello, so I took it upon myself to rewrite any music in treble to bass clef. I was OK for me to do that at the time because I was the ONLY m'cello in the orchestra for @ 5+ years.

[Beanzy]

It was either in treble clef or bass clef. I could read both, but I didn't want to. The mandocello is the same 'voice' as the violincello, so I took it upon myself to rewrite any music in treble to bass clef. I was OK for me to do that at the time because I was the ONLY m'cello in the orchestra for @ 5+ years.

I feel the same about that. For me the treble clef means I'm up in thumb position and I'm sure It'll feel the same when I get the Mandolonello & orchestral parts in the spring. Doing treble octave cleff just seems like adding an impediment to playing. I'm trying to convince the leader/arranger to produce the bass clef parts. For me the working out of the proper clefs for the instrument helps to define the approach and helps set me up mentally.

[Greg Stec]

I think I've seen all gamut of scores for the mandocello, from scores written in bass cleff to scores written MOSTLY in bass clef with a mixture of middle-C clef (not many of them, thanks be) to scores written in treble to scores written in treble with ledger lines BELOW the treble lines. The last one was a nightmare trying to read and rescore. Learning ledger lines going ABOVE the staff is hard enough, but trying to decifer ledgers BELOW the staff gave new meaning to the word headache for me.

[Jim Garber]

Hi, Jim. I'm NOT gonna say it was easy for me when I took on the m'cello. I knew the bass or "F" clef because I had a strong background from taking piano lessons. My problem was adjusting my knowledge then adapting to the m'cello. The first 5 frets of each string went well for me, but then I had to learn the whole fretboard. That took a few years of dedicated practice with violincello cello books.

But now you make your fortune as a world class mandocellist! Excellent!

[Greg Stec]

A "world class" anybody gives the listener the notion that someone is getting paid for their art. I got my $$ as a computer programmer telling high-speed idiots (a/k/a large main-frame computers) what to do. And I ate better for it.

[Jim Garber]

Just a little joke about the fame and fortune of an errant mandocellist. High Speed Idiots -- that would be the name of my new Bluegrass band -- if I played bluegrass.