On the Question of Clefs

I discovered the viola through my daughters. Maybe once, when I was just starting out studying in New York with Dorothy DeLay (right after Stanford), I may have been handed a viola, but I was completely focused on the violin and meeting Ms. Delay’s expectations. I never even asked “my” violists – the violists in my quartets over time – if I could try out their violas. I was pretty single-minded.

When my girls were of an age that they could play I knew they would be more in demand if they took up the viola, and I loved the sound. In fact, for a long time I played a violin – a Goffriller – that I was often told sounded very dark, like a viola. That dark sound really resonated with me. I gave Sarah and Rachel lessons, and I practiced with them before school, all of us learning the viola in our own ways.

The first time I played a viola in public was in a kind of ad hoc concert at the SoCal Chamber Music Workshop. The resident group scheduled to perform the opening concert was delayed by travel problems, so the faculty came up with a program in an afternoon, and I was “volunteered” to play viola. I don’t like cram jobs, but cramming in an unfamiliar clef – violists play in alto clef mostly, not treble, like violinists – was terrifying. And on a borrowed viola, too. When you see that dot on the middle line of an alto clef stave the note is a C (middle C on the piano), but that same position in treble clef, a B, is almost an octave above that middle C. If you’re not careful you search for that B when you play the viola, putting your finger on the wrong string and playing a completely different note than the one on the page. When I’m about to do that I get a kind of paralysis and freeze before I do something stupid.

Violinists play only in treble clef, cellists play in three clefs (bass, tenor and treble), and violists play in alto and treble. Stephen complains that having to play three clefs is an unfair burden. (Blah, blah, blah…) At least he plays them on only one instrument! The most terrifying reading problem for me is when the viola part goes into treble clef. Treble clef produces an unconscious response; if I am not careful I go into violin mode, and all the wrong notes come out. Serious practice is required!

Clefs exist for a reason; they keep one from having to count ledger lines above or below the staff. As a violinist, reading those ledger lines can be a challenge; it’s easier to read notes closer to, or in the staff. I am not complaining; it’s so worth it. There’s nothing like getting to play viola parts in pieces I know so intimately from years of performing them on the violin.

Susan Freier