Quote Originally Posted by ghmerrill View Post
Reading ledger lines is a pain -- I'll agree with that. It's interesting that trombonists learn to read multiple clefs (largely in order to avoid ledger lines), and trombone music is often written in an "appropriate" clef. But tuba music is tuba music (modulo British brass band treble clef stuff). Objectively, it seems even more appropriate for tuba music to make use of multiple clefs. But it doesn't.
In my new bass-clef Arban book (the Encore edition) and in a couple bass-clef solos I've been doing lately, I have run into sections that have a few ledger lines above the staff over many notes (like 16th-note passages) and the ledger lines nearly (or completely) run together. So my brain is trying to figure out what note is on the "8th or 10th line of the staff" and I just lose myself. (Every Good Boy Does Fine Also Causes Eye Glassiness?) Treble clef lessens that problem, although these days some solos go so high that it could still be confusing to the eye. I would personally prefer an 8va there, but I know a lot of folks don't like that.