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Staff/clefs

Pitch is written on a group of five lines (with four spaces between) called a staff.

The higher a note is placed on the staff, the higher the pitch is. If you consider the pitches necessary to notate for various instruments/voices, you realize that five lines and four spaces would be inadequate for the wide range of pitches. Clefs are used to deal with this problem. When the treble clef is used, the notes represented on the staff are relatively high pitches; when the bass clef is used, relatively low pitches are represented by the lines and spaces. Music written for instruments such as the flute or violin is typically in the treble clef, while music for the tuba or string bass is in the bass clef. The treble clef is sometimes called a "G" clef because its lower spiral wraps around the note G. The bass clef is sometimes called an "F" clef because the two dots are located on either side of the note F.

treble (G) clef	bass (F) clef

In addition to the treble (G) and bass (F) clefs, the C clef is regularly used in music today. The C clef denotes a given line as the location of middle C (the C located closest to the middle of a piano keyboard). Historically, the C clef was located on any line of the staff. Following are the five C clefs along with their names:

soprano	mezzo- soprano	alto	tenor	baritone

Today, the most commonly found locations for the C clef are the third line as middle C--called the alto clef:

alto clef	middle C

or the fourth line as middle C--called the tenor clef:

tenor clef	middle C

The alto clef is used primarily for the viola, for which it is the normal clef. The viola is a string instrument that has a pitch range between that of a violin (treble clef) and a cello (bass clef). The tenor clef is used occasionally for the cello, bassoon, and trombone (the normal clef for all of which is the bass clef) when their notes are in a higher register than normal. Use of an appropriate clef allows most of the music to be notated on the staff, eliminating the awkward use of numerous lines added above or below the staff to extend its range ("ledger lines").

The C clefs are important to know if you plan to study or perform early music, to work with orchestral instruments, or to continue the study of music theory.

In the following example, middle C is notated in four different clefs:

middle C in treble, alto, tenor and bass clefs

Following are the names of the lines and spaces in each of the four clefs:

Reading from the bottom to the top, some students find the following memory aids helpful:

 

Treble clef lines:  Every Good Boy Does Fine

Treble clef spaces:  F A C E

Bass clef lines:  Good Boys Do Fine Always

Bass clef spaces:  All Cows Eat Grass

The grand staff (or great staff) combines both the treble and bass clefs. In a grand staff, the two staffs are joined by a vertical line and by a bracket or brace. In all, the grand staff has 11 lines--five for the treble clef, five for the bass clef, and an imaginary line that is located between them which is middle C.

grand staff

 

grand staff lines and spaces