Learning Alto Clef?

Question:I'm learning the viola. I already play flute and piano, so I'm fine with the treble and bass clefs, but I'm struggling with the alto clef as my brain keeps wanting to read the notes as treble clef positions!

Will my brain eventually be able to cope if I persist in learning or will it just burn out and I'll never get the hang of it? I'm 38 so I'm not a kid anymore and learning takes a little longer these days.

Is it possible to be able to get the hang of alto clef and will I still be able to read treble when I'm playing the flute?

I just keep getting brain fog!

Has anybody actually managed to crack this problem?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I'm learning the viola. I already play flute and piano, so I'm fine with the treble and bass clefs, but I'm struggling with the alto clef as my brain keeps wanting to read the notes as treble clef positions!

Will my brain eventually be able to cope if I persist in learning or will it just burn out and I'll never get the hang of it? I'm 38 so I'm not a kid anymore and learning takes a little longer these days.

Is it possible to be able to get the hang of alto clef and will I still be able to read treble when I'm playing the flute?

I just keep getting brain fog!

Has anybody actually managed to crack this problem?

When I took my pedagogy classes for Viola in college, I cheated and actually rewrote all of my music in treble clef. When I had to teach alto clef to my students however, I realized that I could use the same set of mnemonics for all three clefs. For Treble clef, I add one ledger line above the staff, and for Bass clef I add one ledger line below the staff

Then I start on the first line for Treble clef, Empty Garbage Before Dad Freaks Again - A - Again is the ledger line

For Bass cleff I start with the ledger line below the staff
Empty Garbage Before Dad Freaks Again

For the Spaces, I use the memory Aid F - A - C - E (Guard)

For Alto clef, you simply start with the first line and use

F - A - C - A - G(uard)

And for the spaces, start with the space below the staff
(E)mpty - (G)arbage - (B)efore - (D)ad - (F)reaks - (A)gain

The advantage is that you don't have to use any ledger lines at all. Middle C is actually pointed out (backwards) by the clef, and by using the same memory aid and just shifting from spaces to lines (and lines to spaces) you can pretty much keep up with everybody else without having to learn a bunch of new stuff. Best of luck and I hope this helps.

(By the way, I use the one particular memory aid because at least half of all my classes are not boys and they do not care whether they do fine at all. If you learn to empty the garbage before an authority figure gets mad at you however, you will always be more sucsessful than someone who doesn't. It's a win - win situation as far as I am concerned)

When I had to learn tenor clef I had that problem but I was 12. However, I do think it is possible for you to learn. My mom is 50 and she learned it to teach my brother when he started viola. I read in bass clef primarily so when I read alto I used to automatically transpose a note down from the note I see. Now I know the notes after all that practice. For you, from treble, you'd transpose a note up. If you see a G on the page, you'd play an A. What really helps is practice and repetition. Get a beginning book that doesn't have note names on it and just sight read, sight read, sight read. Practice is really the only way to overcome it. But yes you can overcome it. 38 is not too late too learn.

~Lisa

Edit: I see where Chinese Cowboy is coming from. I was self-taught in alto clef and this was my method of madness. Tenor I had to learn the notes as they were because of my music.

Make some flash cards. Run through the flash cards a few times a day and you'll be secure with the alto clef in no time.

Good luck

I don't play the viola, but have been working on a huge project the past few years, of copying large (out of print) sets of music for our orchestra. In writing out the viola parts day after day (using music notation software), I have become used to which note is which. I have also become familiar with the tenor clef (as I work on cello parts). I find that if I work on this every day, I remember it better than if I put it aside and then try to come back to it a couple of weeks later.

As to your learning alto clef, I think it would be tremendously helpful to practice it daily, if even for a few minutes, and try not to cheat and write out the fingering; force your brain to remember it. This is similar to learning 2nd or 4th position on the violin. You can write out the fingerings, or you can force your brain to remember which finger goes where. It's a struggle at first, but after time goes by, your brain starts to remember it. You just have to do it over and over again, and no cheating. I am 47...so I'm even more "not a kid" than you are! Good luck!

And, yes, you might have trouble switching back and forth between clefs, especially if you don't play your flute for a while, so be sure to keep it fresh in your mind by practicing it now and then, too. The good news is, the old cliche...it's like riding a bike; it comes back to you quickly.

Learning alto clef or another C clef is challenging however there is one thing you should never do! Never base alto clef off of treble clef, basically don't transpose down a semitone and then down an octave. Its very confusing and takes too much time. You need to learn what each note really is.

What I mean is the middle line in treble clef is the note B and in alto clef it is middle C. Many people say just read alto clef as a note down from treble, but that is wrong, because it is really a semitone and 1 octave down. This takes too long to calculate.

This is what I suggest and is how my students read it. Ignore treble clef completely when reading alto clef. When you learned bass clef you didn't use any relationship to treble right? So why do it with alto.

There are 3 marking notes on alto clef, the middle line is middle C, the top line is G and the bottom line is F. If you remember these notes then you can read intervals in relationship to them. This way you begin to memorize where the lines and spaces are.

In viola music, you will have a lot of running 16th note passages so if you can recognize a scale as long as you know where to start and where to stop you don't have to read all the notes, but this is the same for any clef. Reading intervals is the best. That is how we read treble and bass clef. People are taught "FACE for Spaces and that Every Good Boy Deserve Fudge" business and all that is is reading intervals.

take a look at your alto clef music, away from the viola, name each note while pointing at it with your finger. You can start off slowly with the metronome and pick up the metronome speed as you get use to it. See, learning to read the clef and learning the positions on the viola add two difficulties at once! Break it up! Do one first, preferably the note naming. Get comfortable with the notes.

This is the same for tenor clef as well, don't read it as one semitone up and then down an octave. Instead, the top line is the note E, middle C is the line underneath and the bottom line is D, then develop this the same way you do alto clef.

If you base your note reading off of treble clef it will take a long time to learn it. Read alto clef as alto clef. Learn it individually without any reference of treble clef as if you are learning a new language.

I'm kind of in the same situation. I sing alto and every now and then you come across a piece where the alto part is written in the alto clef. I also play cello and now that I'm more of an advanced player I have to learn tenor clef. It is difficult at first, but you'll get the hang of it. Just practice, I guess. But it'll be totally worth it because viola is a beautiful instrument!