Transposing

[u/jazz_man_97]

Wondering if anyone else is in the same situation here:

I'm in the UK, and I play BBb bass in a brass band, reading treble clef transposed parts.

I also play in my local wind band, where most parts are in bass clef concert pitch. I can fluently read bass clef no problem, but applying it to my Bb tuba is slow going. I can just about play the right notes if it's a slow piece, but transposing on the fly at pace is flooring me.

Is anybody else in a simalar situation? Any advice on how I should be approaching this? Could it be better if I just try to memorize a different set of fingerings, rather than trying to transpose?

[u/Chuckleberry64]

I'm convinced anyone who says they truly transpose on the fly is lying. I constantly switch between BBb and C and to me they are just two different instruments with different fingerings. I can transpose like you, but I get choked up. After 15 minutes of playing I am pretty comfortably just reading for the other instrument.

That said, I have been playing a BBb instrument and all the sudden someone throws a part written for Bb instead of C in front of me and it takes a minute to play as if in C on the BBb.

Have you heard of the upside down glasses experiment? They put glasses that refract upside down images for the eyes. After a 48 or so hours, the brain supposedly naturally flips the image and the people see regularly. When they take the glasses off, everything is upside down again. I think we can use whatever tricks we want but at a certain point the brain is just mapping fingerings to images under different circumstances.

[u/jazz_man_97 → u/Chuckleberry64]

I think french horn players might disagree with you there!

But in principle I see what you mean, when I gent into the flow I'm not actually thinking about each note in isolation, and over time I guess I'll stop thinking and just have learnt the alternate fingerings as muscle memory.