hi all. im an ameture violist (i picked it up when i was a senior in high school) and im absolutely IN LOVE! even though i only played for 8 months, i auditioned for a regional orchestra and got in, after that i became sooo hungry for more! lol. anywho, my orchestra teacher wants us to play psycho, and theres a part in in that goes to treble clef. we never ended up playing the piece, but ive always wondered how you play treble on viola? ive never asked and now its killing me! thx

hello.I'm also a violist.i recently had to learn treble clef for an audition for an ensemble. i was soooo frustrated at first but its not too hard to read. you have to change the way you think when you read music though. its easiest to start with looking at alto clef. look at the place where an open D usually is on the music staff. in treble clef that spot is where the C (on the A string is located)the next line up would be D etc... hope that helps!

an open d is c in treble? maybe its harder to understand without a demonstration...

Think of the five staff lines from top to bottom. In alto clef these are G E C A F. In treble clef, the lines are F D B G E. The "G" and "E" lines at the top of the alto clef are the same as the "G" and "E" lines at the bottom of the treble clef staff.

In other words, when you read the treble clef, everything is three lines higher than it seems. If there is a note on the bottom line, it is an "E"... the same "E" that would be on the second-to-top line of alto clef.

I used to play violin so I already knew how to read treble clef before I became a violist. At first I had a difficult time, but after awhile of learning how to play between the two clefs in an orchestra you learn pretty quickly how to adapt to it.


I think of it as playing my violin again, except with the loss of my E string. Simply learn where the notes are (lines: e,g,b,d,f spaces: f,a,c,e ) and play. A concert "A" would be the second space starting from the bottom. Once you know that reference point start playing simple stuff and move up to more to more advanced music.

A good piece to practice this on would be the Telemann Viola Concerto. It does this several times to save space on the page and it also helps your shifting (something more viola players need to learn how to do).

yeah, all the above adive is pretty good. mine would be to just practice practice practice. the more you play it, the better you'll be. i played piano for two years before i started viola, but quite 4 years ago. it was hard getting back to treble clef and bass has gone out the window figuratively with the piano. the best thing to do is find where the open strings are in treble (ex. the D string is the bottom space below the bottom line and the open A string is where the B on the G string is.) hope that helps!!