Treble/Alto Switchback - 3 sheets

As mentioned in the introduction, all my violin pupils were introduced to the alto clef fairly early on, during their second year of playing.  The treble/alto switch sheets are a natural progression from the thinking behind the Creative Music Writing sheets, and they continue to develop the perception of the different staves as being, as indeed they are, just small sections of a larger overall picture.

This method of introducing the alto clef gives pupils a better understanding of the whole concept of music notation, and helps dispel any misconceptions that middle line always equals first finger etc - a valuable perception later on when position work is introduced.

Many youngsters will know treble and descant recorder fingerings, young horn players can cope with several transpositions, and young pianists manage to read two clefs simultaneously, so think positively!

The opening scale exactly mirrors the logo's sweep, and the following pieces have been carefully chosen to encourage a mental comparison of their two halves.   Most children will grasp the logic without difficulty; but when they do have a mental block it is well worth persevering, if only because I always found that the same children would also find it difficult to come to terms with the different fingerings required for position work.

Unlike the creative writing sheets, these are not intended to be used one straight after the other, but spread out over a period of a year of more.  As with a similar tenor/bass set, they were first introduced in 1985 through the STRAD magazine, and had reached as far as Australia, long before the world wide web was even a dream to most of us. My intention then was not to produce a mass of specialist viola players; but if the world does have a few more dedicated violists as a result of this initiative I shall be very happy. 

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