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 Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef... 
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Post Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
A quick question for those of you who sight-read, or score your own materials;

What is YOUR preferred method of scoring stuff on the bass clef, and dealing with all of those pesky ledger lines? Yes, we could use stafftab or a tablature thing to give us a fingering, but I was curious how those of you who don't use tabs deal with the ledger lines particularly on the bass side...

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Fri Nov 11, 2016 1:46 pm
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
When scoring the left hand in bass clef, I transpose an octave up (8ve), mostly. Sometimes I use both treble and bass clef for the left hand, to catch all the notes, and an additional treble clef above to notate the right hand notes, 8va basso...

I think that both of these things are illegal! I could get arrested. Look at Gardner Read's Music Notation Book:

https://www.amazon.com/Music-Notation-Crescendo-Book-Gardner/dp/0800854535

R


Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:18 pm
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
(EDIT: "What Rodan said..." :D )

I'm not a prolific reader or scorer, so take this as from a total amateur, but my preferred method, where possible, is to use an 8va clef. What feeble reading skills I have are dependent on 8va; when I see a note on the first ledger line below the regular staff, my finger reaches for my lowest E (4th fret, lowest bass string).

When I was playing Stick in a concert band and would be given a tuba part, which has a lot of ledger lines, I'd usually scan the music into an OCR score reader, change the clef to 8va (or transpose it up an octave), and re-print it.

This can backfire a bit by pushing the higher notes into ledger lines, but for some reason high ledger lines don't bug me as much.

Don't know if I answered your question or not.

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Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:31 pm
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
Hmmn, I kind of do the same thing "8va-ing" and stuff to keep from having too much info cluttering up the score. Thanks for sharing, guys!

I am pretty happy with my basic reading skills on the Stick, but I do find that I have to sometimes re-transcribe certain things. I guess I am at a point now where I want to advance my reading a bit further... Reading is handy for sitting in.... lol

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Fri Nov 11, 2016 5:56 pm
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
Hi all.

I think most Stickists who read, "stick" with the guitar and bass rule of scoring an octave higher than sounding.
But it is a pain with the ledger lines above the bass clef.
So I too use bass and treble staves (staff) for the whole left hand.
I've also put the high bass on the same treble staff as the melody if there aren't to many overlaps
But if its not too complex you can get away with just a bass staff.
I dont use staff-tab. I've just (mostly) learnt where the notes are on the music!
I also only use the 8va if the melody goes extremely high....which is how I'd write for bass or guitar...since its easy to thing that way if you're playing higher than the 12 fret!!

Heres a few bars of something the way I like to see Stick music..


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Sat Nov 12, 2016 1:51 am
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
calypsocool wrote:
Hi all.

I think most Stickists who read, "stick" with the guitar and bass rule of scoring an octave higher than sounding.
But it is a pain with the ledger lines above the bass clef.
So I too use bass and treble staves (staff) for the whole left hand.
I've also put the high bass on the same treble staff as the melody if there aren't to many overlaps
But if its not too complex you can get away with just a bass staff.
I dont use staff-tab. I've just (mostly) learnt where the notes are on the music!
I also only use the 8va if the melody goes extremely high....which is how I'd write for bass or guitar...since its easy to thing that way if you're playing higher than the 12 fret!!

Heres a few bars of something the way I like to see Stick music..


Oh, I really, really like that. I was thinking of it, but hadn't really tried it yet. Makes a lot of sense. Very cool, thanks for a great idea!

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Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:41 am
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
Gotta hand it to you man, you ask the best questions!

Thanks for this. Answered a lot of questions I had that were sort of percolating around in the back of my head waiting for me to clue into what I was missing.

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Sun Nov 13, 2016 6:42 am
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
I've been doing a lot of reading lately, mostly music write for piano and also for bass. Having the opportunity to interact a lot with the composers has been great, as they can hear it and decide which octave to place it.

The understanding we have is that if they want it in the octave written, they won't add any instruction, and if they want it an octave lower, then they will write 8vb.

This is the opposite of the StaffTab convention, where everything is written 8va, as a matter of course.

It's been really fun to spend more time in "piano-land" up high on the board...

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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
greg wrote:
I've been doing a lot of reading lately, mostly music write for piano and also for bass. Having the opportunity to interact a lot with the composers has been great, as they can hear it and decide which octave to place it.

The understanding we have is that if they want it in the octave written, they won't add any instruction, and if they want it an octave lower, then they will write 8vb.

This is the opposite of the StaffTab convention, where everything is written 8va, as a matter of course.

It's been really fun to spend more time in "piano-land" up high on the board...


Yeah, 8va/8vb is kind of what I have been using; I have always hated tablature and try to avoid it like the plague. I feel strongly that literacy will not hurt me as a musician. 3 clefs is a bit weird, but it portrays the range of the Stick pretty accurately. It does take up quite a bit more space on the score, though, meaning more pages.

I also put position markers, as you would for guitar, but the 5ths tuning makes for a lot less position playing. And that is cool, I want to get to know that aspect of the instrument a lot better.

Ok, food for thought guys. Thanks!

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Sun Nov 13, 2016 11:15 am
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Post Re: Chapman Stick and Scoring the Bass clef...
Yes food for thought!
I hadn't really thought about which instrument people played before becoming Stickists.
For Greg, who played piano (and sax if memory serves), it would be quite natural to have the notes in concert pitch.
Whereas for a veteran guitarist/bassist like myself the octave up notation is the norm.
I'm so used to hearing my notes come out an octave lower than the notes I'm reading I don't think I could do it any other way!

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Mon Nov 14, 2016 4:45 am
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