Re: Baritone and treble clef

[David Sumbler]

On Mon, 2017-02-13 at 22:58 +0100, Simon Albrecht wrote:
> On 13.02.2017 17:43, Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > The piece I am setting can be sung by a baritone or by a mezzo-
> > > soprano.
> > >   In the score, therefore, there are 2 vocal staves, one for each
> > > of the
> > > alternative voices.  The staves contain identical music apart
> > > from an
> > > octave diffence in pitch and different clefs.
> > Aside: Have you thought about just having one staff, and putting
> > the clef modifier (i.e., subscript 8) in parentheses?
> I agree. Baritones have no trouble whatsoever singing from treble
> clef. 
> I’d not even bother to put the clef modifier there, because it’s 
> self-explanatory if you write ‘Mezzosoprano or baritone’. But that
> may 
> be from my personal dislike of \clef "treble_8". Historically, when 
> people started notating tenors with treble clefs, it was transposing 
> notation, the whole ‘octavated clef’ idea being in this case a 
> misconception. (advanced piano notation being a different issue)
> 
> Best, Simon

I am reluctant to remove the baritone line, written in bass clef, for 2
reasons:
1) the piece was originally written for baritone singer, and I would
therefore not like anyone to get the impression that the male voice is
merely an less desirable alternative to the female voice.
2) I may 
be mistaken, since I am not generally involved in performing vocal
music, but I think it would be unusual for a baritone to be expected to
read treble clef.  I am sure that most can, but that is hardly the
point: I used to be a flute-player, and I could easily have read my
music in bass clef (performing the necessary 1- or 2-octave
transpostion), but in 55 years I was never expected to.

David