This is just a bit of a rant, so bear with me.
For a good while now, I have been building up a pretty darn good collection of trombone quartet music. It's not every day I am able to get four bone players together (sad considering how many I work with, but that's another story.)
So today, after many failed efforts, I finally got four of us together to try out some of these charts. I was soooooo looking forward to trying them out.
So... the big disappointment. We had to overlook a good half dozen charts because the guy playing third could not read tenor clef. Not a lick.
Ok..so if you're in your first couple of years playing, it's probably not time to worry about tenor clef just yet. But if you're in high school, or have a few good years under your belt, and you plan on taking your trombone studies further, please devote some time to learning to read it. If you don't, you are leaving doors to a lot of good literature closed. Don't wait for it to show up on your stand.

Oh man, Steve, I completely and totally agree with you. Tenor clef is not as hard as it looks, and if you want to get around reading in the real world, let alone al the cool small ensemble stuff, you really need to know it. There is SO MUCH you miss if you can't read it. High school juniors and seniors planning on playing in college (music major or not)should learn it as soon as possible. College freshman, if you're not in the process already of learning it, get on that right now.

Hell, even if you just play for fun, you should know it. It's too valuable not to.

Really, it's not hard. There are plenty of books out there to help out, and it is really worth it. We have to transpose a lot of music in the trombone choir I play in so that everyone can play, but that means when we buy music, we sometimes cannot play it right away.

If you don't know it now, learn it. It's easy, and once you get good at it, it's more fun and easier to read in the higher registers.

Then, once you know tenor clef, go for alto!

I've only been playing for a few years, and I don't know how to read tenor or alto clef. It is really easy to transpose music in your head. Once you figure out a few "base" notes, you can very easily figure out the rest. I borrowed some Pirates of the Caribbean music for clarinet (it had the melody, and the trombone piece had the melody for four measures) from my band teacher. It took my maybe two hours to be able to play it through completely and competently. Two hours is an estimate.

My point is that once you learn the staff notes, you can play in that clef. Don't get me wrong, you definately need to practice a lot to have it be second nature.

Sure... but my point is, you need to be a fluent reader. We didn't have two hours to sit around while this guy figured it out. It's one thing to understand it in theory, and to be able to figure it out in the woodshed. It's entirely another (and a far more valuable asset in the real world!) to be able to sight read it well. And that takes daily practice.
And to give you an idea of its necessity...
Out of my collection of about 30 quartets, about eight of them have tenor clef in the THIRD bone part. Most of them have it in the second part, and the first parts are almost all tenor or alto clef.
If all you are going to play is what shows up on your stand in middle or high school, you may or may not encounter it, but probably not. But if you start going all region/state/whatever, or start digging into the solo repertoire, or other stuff like quartets and quintets, or especially the orchestral repertoire... it will rear its ugly head. Be prepared.

I'm in a brass band and need to learn to read tenor clef. The thing is, I've been told to get books off the internet, but I'm not currently able to-I don't have a way to pay for it. So is there anyway I can get a link from the internet where I can play the note as long as see it. I have smartmusic program, but I can't find a way to put it into tenor clef on the music on the screen area.
I've been told that transposing flute music from Bb is the same as reading tenor clef, but i also don't know treble clef-sad, i know. But then again i'm only a sophomore in high school. My band room is...well...not there...my school is getting a 9 million dollar renovation and the music dept. is last on the list, and its being done right now. So besides not being in school, I can't get anything to help.
I have asked the director of the brass band, but he said he had long since given his book away. I've not asked anyone else yet, but I'd still want to go in and know it some before actually getting a book and starting from scratch. I know where the C is, since thats the easiest part, but above and below the staff I should be looking at the inside of a computer, which I don't know what i'm looking at.
So is there anywhere i can get a link or something on smartmusic that I've overlooked?

You can order books from Hickeys through the mail. It may take longer, but if you can't pay over the internet you can mail them a check. If you don't have a check, you can go to any bank or 7-11 and buy a money order for about a buck. Won't your parents help you out? When I was your age, I'd just save the money myself, give it to my mom or dad, and ask them to order it for me. If they won't, maybe your music teacher will.
Or...
since you know how tenor clef works, with a little effort you could make your own flash cards to drill yourself. think outside the box. There is always a way.

yeah they will help, but my family is scattered throughout the east right now. My dad and I are living together and my mom and brother are with my grandfather. So its much harder to order stuff off the internet when theres 1 income and a load of bills...but I know how tenor is, i just need much easier music to read, such as the links online if there are any. When I do get the flash cards-or the musictheory.com note trainer, I don't really transfer the information into my actual playing. Its really just two different worlds for me, now some of the notes are handed over when i play, just not the way i want. But I've noticed I learn better if i'm able to play along.

Well man, I don't know what to tell you. If you want to learn it bad enough, you'll find a way. Borrow stuff. Write some stuff out yourself. Read stuff you already know well in tenor clef and adding a sharp to the key. If that makes the range too high for you, take it down an octave.
Borrow an easy book from one of the trumpet players. Read it as tenor clef , adding two flats to the key signature.
Write some stuff out for yourself. Start with scales. Stuff you know. Write some rochuts out in tenor clef, then play them.
You can make excuses, or you can make it happen. It's up to you. It's not about money. There are plenty of ways to work on it for free.

Steve, I didn't mean to intend that you should have waited two hours for the third bone to figure his part out. I only meant that you can "know" the notes in a few hours depending on the difficulty of the music. Since the Pirates music only had maybe 10 different pitches, I could play it fluently in two hours. You definately have to be able to read your music fluently in order to be able to play music in that clef. For more advanced music, it would surely take many daily practices to be able to play it well.

I haven't recieved any music that is written in tenor or alto clef. The notes I play in band are all below middle C, and since most people in my band don't practice at all (very sad), my director thinks it's too advanced for us. I printed out a sheet that had tenor clef notes on it from Google (also sad), and I want to be able to read tenor and maybe alto clef fluently before the summer ends. I will probably get a private teacher in the summer, so I might get some with tenor/alto clefs. I hope to be prepared when it does rear its ugly head.

I was told it was like reading flute music...That probably would help out a lot if I knew...so, when transposing brass band music (or any tenor i guess???) all you do is add 2 sharps, but do you read it as you are reading from trumpet music or flute music? I was told as flute music.

No, flutes are already in the key of C, or concert pitch.

You can read clarinet, tenor sax, or trumpet. Those are the main band instruments in the key of Bb. You add two flats to it, and read it as tenor clef. That is a good way to learn if you are unable to go out and buy a $5 to $10 book.

Really though, there are lots of ways to buy things online if you don't have a music store in your area. You just have to want it bad enough and be persistent enough to keep trying. It's worth it.

Trombone_dude67,
It sounds to me like you are certainly not ready for tenor clef just yet. While the music you read may stay consistently below middle C, the stuff I play tends to stay well above it. I'm not adressing the beginnners here, just those that are serious about playing through high school and beyond. At your level, of course tenor clef isn't gonna show up.
In my job, it does. And believe me, if I told my bandmates I couldn't read a chart that was handed to me because it was in tenor clef, I'd be in sitting in my boss's office for an uncomfortable meeting pretty darn quick.
Look, like I said in the original post... it was a rant... me venting more than anything else.

<Added>

Just as a side note...
The US Navy Band is holding an audition for a trombonist. Out of the 8 required excerpts, 4 have tenor clef. Check it out for yourself.
http://www.navyband.navy.mil/pdfs/auditions/Trombone%20Audition%20Music%20for%20April%2023,%202007.pdf

Yeah, I'm probably not ready for it yet, and I most likely won't learn tenor or alto over the summer. But I am serious about playing in high school and college, and maybe after that, but probably not as a pro.

yeah tenor clef is a bugger when i started playing in my local brass band i got a piece of music with tenor cleff on it stuck in front of me. boy did i freak. im not qutie sure if this works for it all the time but i just read it as trebel cleff and evey time i come across a c, f or g you just raise it a semitone. again i dont think it works for it all the time u can easily tell if u dont need to raise it or not so if it doesn't sound right just make a note of it on the music. also u must take away two sharps from the key signature and add a flat.... i think. but anyway if anyone can correct me on this your welcome too but thats how i read tenor cleff and it works perfectly for me! (now u just need to worry about alto lol)