You are probably familiar with the treble clef and maybe the bass clef. In early music you may also come across the tenor clef and the alto clef (which you may be familiar with if you are a cello or viola player).

If you're used to playing on one particular clef, and you are playing early music on an instrument which used the same clef, there is no problem. But the time may come when you need to read a different clef - perhaps someone hands you a part written on a clef you are not used to, or as a recorder player you have decided it is time to add bass recorder to your repertoire. How easy it is to move to a new clef depends on how you read the notes. Some of us read a note on the stave, say to ourselves "that is a G", then play a G on our instruments. Others read the note, then move straight to finding the right placement of fingers, missing out the "that is a G" step.

For people in the first group, playing on a different clef is relatively straightforward, once you've worked out what the notes are on the new stave. For people in the second group it is much more difficult.But in either case, there is no substitute for practice.