Treble Clef: here are the notes I hope you like them ☺️

Bass Clef: I moved all your stuff, good luck finding anything, Ds are Fs now fuck you

April 11, 2026 - 14:15 UTC

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When my son (trombone player) played alto sax one summer in jr high, he “read” the music in bass clef and just learned the corresponding hand positions. His attitude was “I will never need treble clef again, why bother?”
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This is actually pretty sensible, I think? At least, as a bassoon player I used to read alto and bari sax music like it was in bass clef, but adding three flats to the key signature, for automatic lazy transposition. Sounds like your son effectively did that in reverse!
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I see you play the violin. Would you like to try something like a bigger, mellower violin? Isn't that nice?

Oh, just one thing ...
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Well, as we used to joke, violin players with an education are viola players. 😜
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Side note: Original alt text

["Man holding scissors to his head"]
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Alto Clef:
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Other - less cooperative - clefs are also available, and don't get me started on some instruments deciding they want their notes transposing before you can play them
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Now let me introduce you to my buddies Alto and Tenor. Ha-ha, been nice knowing ya!
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Alto clef ftw!
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Also, the first time I played trumpet in a proper orchestra at college, finding that the parts are printed in C despite most trumpets being in B-flat, and having to transpose on-the-fly 😖
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It’s when you get trumpet in E it gets really hair-raising😅🎺
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Clarinets often have to do this also
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E flat tuba to B flat tuba was an absolute brain scrambler as a kid! I played piano and my left hand was based on vibes rather than reading the bass clef. Then I decided to learn Cello. Bass clef still screws me over but tenor clef now seems logical.
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Could be worse bsky.app/profile/musicnotation.bsky.social/post/3luth77pm2h2h
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The physicist in me thinks this is beautiful. The musician (such as I am) is glad I can't hear much below 20 Hz
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Bari sax player: "The trombones have a couple people out today. I'll just peek over at their stand and help out with their parts".
*Leans over to look at sheet music*
"What the fuck is going on here?"
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Ah, the Eb/Bb conundrum. I was shocked to learn (I think) that orchestral trumpet and maybe horn parts use all accidentals and no key signature for some reaaon?
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Alto clef : yeah fuck all y'all.
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I'm so sorry, but bass clef makes so much more sense. All your open strings on cello are on the top, middle, And bottom lines, rather than in random places for no good reason.
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One of the schools I taught in had a music instructor who specialized in gamelan and oh my gosh, between the different scales and wildly different notation, it broke my brain a bit!
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*rings doorbell*

Hello! Might you have a moment to talk about quarter tones?
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Don't even get me fucking started on alto clef. I'm not learning that.
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Better hope you don't encounter a viola part, you'll lose your everloving shit.
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Music teacher here:

Treble and Bass Clef are just two floors of the same building. The floor of one is also the ceiling of the other. (middle c)

Every instrument has a floor where they are more comfortable, but some spend so much time going up and down the stairs that it makes sense to build
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A room somewhere in between. (Alto and Tenor clefs) to save them some effort once they get used to it.

We could redesign the whole building so that every floor is identical to solve some of the prolems and create sone new ones. There are also accommodations that will make the it more accessible.
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I get this whenever I'm looking at Bach autograph scores where he's written the treble clef line in soprano clef, just because.
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people in the replies talking about alto clef and tenor clef and I’m like what do you mean there’s more how many clefs do u need bro 😭
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Those are offbrand Temu clefs.
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Now try transposing G clef. Try playing that D? Fuck you it's a C now.
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Musicians are always making shit up. Can't trust them.
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There's only 2 clefs. It's basic musicology.
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Used to play the viola, everyone forgets about the viola and its middle-child clef. Fun viola fact, because it's technically from a different family of instruments the sizes aren't in the usual full, 3/4, etc., they're in inches. It's fun telling people with a straight face "oh, mine is 15 inches".
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Depends how many instruments you have…
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Bet all these “alto clefts” can’t even tell you what is a treble.
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"Please bro just one more clef."
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Just wait til you hear about the modes. They make my head hurt 🙃
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Too many clefs spoil the broth.
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Advanced music theory boils down to “because I said you can go fuck yourself, that’s why.”
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These guys transcend all the clefs...😁

youtu.be/0Ssi-9wS1so?si=QFNN7zLwxzYlniLv
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the C-clef is my personal nemesis. why does it MOVE
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Clefs everywhere for those with eyes to see
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And here I was only knowing Clef Tintwain
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everyone knows there's only 2 chefs, the rest are just woke gone mad!!!!
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my favorite is when you transpose tenor and alto clefs on a Bb instrument. they go right back to being treble and bass clefs, respectively 😇
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Wait til you hear about Wyclef
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as a person who works entirely "in the box" (meaning in a DAW on my computer) thankfully none. the clefs can't hurt me, they aren't real
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To be fair, most of those look the same but just stuck onto different lines.
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oh…oh, there are so many, SO MANY clefs. those four are nothing 🤣
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There are only two clefs
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… And then there’s J. S. Bach.
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Piano lessons say EGBDF becomes %#+¥€
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Stave notation isn’t real.
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Pianists (like me) being real smug about their familiarity with both

...until they're jumpscared by an alto clef.
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Real smug until you get five ledger lines in the soprano. Cellists could never.
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Women's barbershop bass clef: oh, and sing everything up an octave. Forget where you think middle C is.
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Treble: every good boy does fine

Bass: goddamn bastard dammit fucking asshole
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Really glad I didn't know this in Jr. High!
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LOL
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Never heard this mnemonic before, it's hilarious.
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as a former low brass player, I endorse this message
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A more "G" rated entry from one of my elementary school students:
Great Big Dragons Fly Away.
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This is very helpful actually thank you
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I’ve been using good burritos don’t fall apart, but this is excellent.
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Alto clef: You may want to sit down for this.
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Needs posting with alto text.
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I don't like the tenor of this thread
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I'm a woodwind doubler. I've played piccolo, flute, alto flute, penny whistle, clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, oboe, soprano sax, alto sax, tenor sax, and baritone sax using nothing but treble clef.

Woodwind doublers learned long ago to simply adjust reality to suit us. ;)
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Philosophy Tuba
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It would have been easier if english called each clef by the note it points to like we do in french instead of whatever the fuck this is
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Clef posting
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C Clef: "Chaos is the score upon which reality is written."
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*laughs in pianist*
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God bless middle C, the beacon that lights the way home
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I played bass violin in my elementary school orchestra. For years bass clef was the only music I could read. I taught myself to read treble clef as an adult.
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Bass Viol:
I'm gonna play these notes an octave lower, lol.
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Same for cello! It was a nightmare when I had to learn the treble clef for school
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What do you mean by bass violin? Only instrument I could think of as ‚violin bass‘ is the bass guitar like Paul McCartney played it.
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I should add that I quit playing bass violin (and classical music) when I graduated elementary school. Later on in my life I learned to play old time and early country music on banjo, mandolin, and guitar - these forms of music are usually not written but learned ‘by ear’.
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As a barisax player for 10+ years now learning bass, I'm exhausted because Every Good Boy Does Fine and FACE are imprinted in my brain. 😅
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I play the piano as well as the cello, so the treble and bass clefs are both good. But the C clef can fuck right off. What do you mean middle c moves around and you just gotta remember???
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Let's not even get into Concert Pitch versus what is written for most wind instruments.
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As a trombone player I feel the exact opposite
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Yeah I can still read bass clef more than a decade after last picking up a trombone but treble always required manually counting things out for me.
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I learned bass cleff playing trombone in, like, high school.

I promise you the confusion works in reverse.
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Say hello to my little friend.
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As a choir bass singer I heartily disagree.
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Alto clef:

“STICK IT IN THE MIDDLE WOOOOOO LETS GOOOOOO”
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Tenor clef: better than a million ledger lines tbh
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And drum notation just tries to blend in until you start asking questions. But cybals are kisses

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percussion_notation
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I learned both from playing piano, and when I started learning cello I was excited about the head start that would give me… until tenor clef decided to ruin my life.
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*ducks*
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Viola Clef: You've never heard of me? That's why my fuckery is even more fiendish!
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No one else uses me in the orchestra so I hope you know how to transpose on the fly!
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It’s all C4 (middle C) shenanigans
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*laughs in cellist*
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Or, just burn it all down, moo hoo ha ha ha...

youtu.be/Eq3bUFgEcb4?si=hC8w2w4XamdugOjz
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Tenor Clef: Just kill me already.
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There’s a tenor clef? 😱
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You'll pry tenor clef out of my cold, dead hands
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Alto clef: fuck anyone but viola players trying to figure out what’s going on
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Alto Clef: hold my beer 🍺
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Im going to bike to my parent's house to get my trombone and play an F (not a C an F) until I turn blue out of spite.
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🤣
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Wait until she learns about C clefs...
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Having lived pretty much my entire choral and brass-playing life in bass clef, I'm pretty sure you've got that backwards.
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And then there's Alto clef...
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I played flute all through elementary and junior high. In high school I joined the jazz band and had to transpose trumpet music to treble clef from bass clef. Took me about 3 weeks to just learn to do it in my head, rather than rewriting the music notes.
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All the baritones and basses rolling their eyes at the rest of us....
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Don’t even, Alto Clef!!!!!
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the bass clef is my house thats where i live and it's very cozy
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IKR. Why isn't it an integer number of octaves down? You know "octaves" - the things with either 7 or 12 notes in them.
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that are frequency powers of ... two.
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I have the opposite problem. 😭
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Can we please talk about the shape of rests!?!? What were you thinking!?!?
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Alto Clef: Oh, you play piano, trumpet, French horn? Bet you think you're pretty clever, eh? Know all about clefs, eh? Ha!
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Alto and tenor clef: haha eat shit
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You and I both know the Bass Clef had those notes first. Treble pretender got nothing on the bass.
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Tenor clef - I was make your instrument the butt of every joke.
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Green Bananas Draw Flies ... Again?
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Bass players go deeper..
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And let’s not talk about drummers… 😂😂😂
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It is all (notation and theoretical terms) madenningly complicated, esoteric and archaic due to its historic development. Someone should invent a whole, new sensible system from scratch
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Team alto over here
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𝄡
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Playing bass clarinet is like, "You should technically be in bass clef, but we're just gonna pretend you're a clarinet who smoked too many cigarettes."
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Bass and contrabass flute are just written in treble clef because they know flute players are not going to read bass.

Piccolo should be in a higher clef anyway!

The different clefs seem very silly. It only matters for piano players smh.
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We just... don't discuss the contrabass clarinet in decent company.
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See also: baritone horn
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This whole thread is LIFE. 😂
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Half the reason I refused Contra Bass Clarinet. "I gotta learn a whole new music signature?"
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*the baritone saxophone has entered the chat*
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Alto Clef: Chaos Incarnate
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Some advanced music info: The three clefs are abstracted letters (G, F, and C clefs) and their position on the staff indicates where said letters are. So the G clef with the swirl on the second line from the bottom is a treble clef.
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Shh, nobody mention tablature… 🎸
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Bass clef is the one that's consistent! Treble clef keeps transposing all the time! (For instruments, vocals/piano it's consistent at least)
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But have you tried alto clef?
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What helps me most is remembering that the spaces are "ACEG" (like I literally pronounce it "Ace G") and the top line is A. Also helps remembering bass clef as "F clef" because the F is on the line between the two dots on the clef. Took me a while to get it, but you adjust.
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All cows eat grass. 😉
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…would like a word
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That thing should not be.
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*panics in former life*
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𝄡
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Hey everybody, new impersonation account to report:

@shjsisidhdhdh.bsky.social
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I started playing instruments in treble clef in 1995. I took up a bass clef instrument in 2001. I am now finally getting used to it.
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Tenor clef, treble in F/Bb/Eb, alto clef, whoo boy do these lines not mean anything at the end of the day 🙃
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(affectionate)
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Trouble clef: ::puts on brass knuckles::
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* Bass knuckles
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C-clefs... we do EVERYTHING! That note you thought you knew? Ha Ha Ha Ha!
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C Clef: bwahahahahaaa!
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Alto Clef
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as someone who learned to read music on upright bass, I have the opposite problem 😂
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I play a lot of pre-1600 music, and the clef used to be in whatever position created the fewest ledger lines. Sometimes they moved the clef in a random line jump within a piece! It does make reading from facsimile exciting.
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Alto clef ...
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alto clef: you might not even notice I'm here until it's far too late 😈
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I'm ashamed to say that I had a really hard time with the bass clef.
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