What's your favourite clef?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Anyone (bbm??) know why concert band parts favour bass (sic) clef but orchestral favour bass clef??

I'd always assumed that band players used treble clef because players sometimes switched to another instrument.

[David Underdown]

Brass band parts are the ones all in treble clef. I think it's just a matter of standardisation as to why miltary band parts tend to use bass clef - though I remember when the school band did a workshop day with the Normandy Band of the Royal Green Jackets, the ancient trombone part for the Holst second suite was in tenor clef. Fortunately I was also playing it with the local music service band at the time, so was able to switch to what was then a more readable copy.

I didn't really mind part staht in one or the other, it was ones that switched every few bars which were a nightmare (Hindemith's Trombane Sonata was particularly bad for this as I recall). Still, now I'm a choral tenor, at least I'd had plenty of practice at switching clefs.

[BBMmk2]

Tuba players have the best of both worlds, depending where your coming from. If yo p-lay in a brasss band, you play the treble celf, as the tuba is a transpoisitonal instrument and in the orchestra, we have the bass clef. So as I play Eb Bass(or more precise nthe EEb Bass/tuba), when it comes to the orchestra, I transpose a minor 3rd up.

[bull-scheidt]

The main problem with clefs is that one can never draw them quite as well as they appear in print.