tradella clefExample Stradella clef sheets
Once you’ve learned how Stradella clef works, you’ll want to practise playing some real pieces. No commercial sheet music vendor is selling Stradella clef sheets yet, but here’s some free sheet music you can download and play today. You can also find the LilyPond source files for these sheets on GitHub to help you learn to make your own sheets.
All of these show ambitus at the start of the piece.
Auld Lang Syne
An easy and familiar tune, this is the perfect first piece for beginners. The bass line is all crotchets (quarter notes) with major, minor, seventh chords, plus a few counterbass notes to add interest.
Good Ale
One of England’s less-known folk tunes, I added my own intro and bridge to the traditional melody and words.
The reading and G major key (one sharp) are still beginner-friendly, but there’s some additions that make it a little more complex than Auld Lang Syne:—
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The 3/2–2/2 time changes may surprise beginners.
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The end of each chorus is marked by holding the root and major buttons together, but there’s no real chord combining.
Whether this does anything depends on the bass registration: some instruments have a bass register where the root notes are an octave lower than the chords, but many don’t want the extra weight and volume of another rank of bass reeds. If it sounds the same on your box, just play the major alone.
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Some of the long notes have a prall ornament on them, which you might not have seen before. This is a simple ornament that just goes up to the next note and back down. I’d say both the second and third bar are reasonable interpretations of how to play the ornament in the first bar.
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The chord names are also shown above each system. This is more as an aid for letting a guitarist or similar play along with you, but you may find they help you to learn which bass note is which.
I play this out and it’s a fun tune. I like to ham up slurring the words increasingly as the song goes on, before “sobering up” to belt out the last line.