Alto clef in Organ music

I wonder if someone would kindly explain to me why the altoclef is used, especially by Buxtehude in his Chorales, instead of the bass clef?
And is it just years more practice to get used to sight reading the alto clef, or is there any trick to doing it?
I love his music, but am put off when I see that clef!
Cheers

Well I suppose in theory you should be able to read it 'as is', like you do the treble and bass clefs.

But those of us who cheat just read it as treble clef and then raise each note one step in our heads (and play an octave lower of course).

Or...read as bass clef and lower each note one step!

It all adds to the gentle mental meltdown of organ playing!

And if you get so you find reading treble, bass and alto at the same time becomes too easy, you could try doing all that while transposing the piece up a minor third!

deW

EDIT: I too have often wondered why they needed to use the alto clef at all. But you can always buy an edition which doesn't use it (are you using an old IMSLP edition maybe?).

I guess it is due to the range of the choral melody: If it is not written in C cleft it will have many additional lines in the pentagram G or F clefs.

I am one of the ones unable to read C clef, so I got an old Bach edition without it.

Being one note up or down is hardly going to save many extra lines I think.

Reading different clefs is a matter of practice. I speak as a trumpet player who has to perpetually transpose. I struggled for ages with the first 'C' part. (It was La Calinda by Delius) Suddenly it happened. I imagine the alto clef in the gap between the two staves. Try playing viola parts and it will happen.

Thanks for all the thoughts, everybody - I thought I'd just have to grin and bear it and struggle on - it rather slows down ones playing having to, after 60 years of using the bass clef, to have to start converting music in ones head.

I was really wondering 'why' the alto clef is used instead of the bass clef.

As polikimre says, it doesn't save many (any) extra lines. I did wonder if it was something to do with the pieces being Chorales, as that is as far as I can see, the only time Buxtehude uses the alto clef?

Hello

Have a look here : http://imslp.org/wiki/
baroque organ music is often available in several editions...
some of them have the traditional alto clef, other are more recent with the F and G key.

This brings back memories of my undergrad days (40+ years ago) when we had to prepare one Contrapunctus per week from Bach's Art of Fugue for "Keyboard Skills" - open score and the top three parts in three different C clefs. Not easy.

I guess it is due to the range of the choral melody: If it is not written in C cleft it will have many additional lines in the pentagram G or F clefs.

I am one of the ones unable to read C clef, so I got an old Bach edition without it.

It is as profluisegarcia says. Consider this example with three times the same 'melody':



The melody is a lot easier to write with the alto-clef (and dependant on the tonal range of the melody the same is true for the tenor-cleff or just any C-clef)

I guess the is why they started to use the G clef an octave down.

Thank you once again everybody - I've now got it.
My main error was in thinking that the alto clef was transposing one note up, which is why I thought it wouldn't mean any extra lines, but now realise that it is actually 7 notes up!. In other words I thought the C line it is on was C3 but it is actually C4.
Of course, that doesn't make it any easier to play! but at least I am not frustrated by not knowing why!

Hello Polikimre; there are melodies -as the famous Sleepers Awake, which extendes from note 16 (E flat, second octave) to note 32 (G, third octave) and more. Many extra lines if written in F or G clef. Doesn´t it?
I rewrote the sheet music of this piece placing the melody in G clef (first note -Eflat- 28) and playing it an octave lower.
C clef editions solve the visual and aesthetic mess... without pity for bad readers or amateurs like me.
Thanks Ajongbloed for the picture.

I for one find the alto clef confusing; for music which I am already familiar with and for which therefore having the music in front of me is an "aide memoire" I can cope with it, but for learning new music it's a turn-off. Can anyone recommend me from imslp or other open-source repositories those editions of baroque chorale preludes that don't have the alto clef? If you look hard you will find some (I have most of Bach's now, but it took a lot of tracking down), but I've drawn a blank at Buxtehude, Walcker, Bohm, Pachebel etc.

This just came across the HPSCHD mailing list which, as you might gather, is for harpsichord makers and players who don't like vowels. Someone was asking about edition of Frescobaldi, and a number of (expensive) modern editions were recommended. This response, I think, is pitch perfect, and the author gave me permission to reprint it here:


Oh, for Pete's sake. Get the SPES facsimiles of the real thing. Dirt cheap compared to modern "editions" and from the horse's mouth.

Yeah, you'll have to trudge through the clefs, just like the young'uns being seen as dumb to adults because the former can't process treble and bass clef without thinking of it.

Taking the time to trudge through the clefs, and then getting in sync with how the engraver's graphics suggest an aesthetic approach is worth it.

Unless of course one doesn't find the discovery process really fun and interesting, and just wants to "master" all the Frescobaldi toccatas in a week or two because, in a modern edition (all of which make them look not like crazy Italian music but Northern European Box hymns) allows one to pretend to "understand" the literature and "perform" it all in a week or two.

Garrrumph.

owen

Seriously, and respectfully... get the facsimile, and take the time it takes. It's more fun than you can imagine.


This is from Owen Daly, one of the best modern makers and also an accomplished performer. (SPES = Studio Per Edizioni Scelti; a Florentine publisher of facsmiles.)

There's an easy answer as to why they used to use the weird clefs back then, and that is that they weren't weird to them. They trained with them. The way to learn them is by playing them. Everytime we play in treble and bass, we reinforce those, so we have to make an effort to play in other clefs. Obviously the worst part is the beginning, but it obviously becomes much easier with practice. Yeah, weird clefs slow things down, especially when you're new to them, but so what? If you race through the music as fast as possible, you're missing most of it. Old-spelling editions of Shakespeare not only because they preserve something of the look that Shakespeare would have been familiar with, but also because they force the reader to slow down, and that's a good thing.

Hello Polikimre; there are melodies -as the famous Sleepers Awake,

Dear Luis,

this hurts - it is called Wachet auf ruft uns die Stimme (BWV645) from the Schübler Choräle - no offense intended!

Ernst

Edit: well, Google-ing Sleepers Awake at least I came across BWV 645 so I guess you meant this one...