Chapter 1
Practice ↓The Staff and Clefs
For musicians to read and write music, there must be a way to organize it legibly on paper. In tonal music—the kind of music we often play in band and orchestra—music is organized on the musical staff. The staff allows composers to communicate what pitches and rhythms they want musicians to perform in an easily-readable and consistent format. Along with the staff, the clef is the element of musical notation that helps musicians understand what specific pitches to play.
The staff (plural: staves) contains five lines and four spaces that each represent a specific pitch. Drawn around one of those five lines, a clef acts as a sort of key to understanding which pitches the lines and spaces represent. A C clef, for example, tells us the line on which middle C will be written.
Alto & Tenor Clefs
The two most common clefs in modern musical notation are the treble clef and the bass clef. The treble clef (or G clef) indicates the location of the G above middle C, encircling the G staff line. When using treble clef, the G line is the second from the bottom of the staff. From the bottom of the staff to the top, the lines in treble clef represent the pitches E, G, B, D, and F. The spaces represent the pitches F, A, C, and E.
Treble Clef
The bass clef (or F clef), on the other hand, indicates the location of the F below middle C. Its two dots surround the F staff line. When using the bass clef, the F line is the fourth from the bottom of the staff. The lines of the bass clef, from the bottom up, represent the pitches G, B, D, F, and A. The spaces represent A, C, E, and G.
Bass Clef
In piano music, the treble and bass clefs are written one over the other in what is called the grand staff.
Grand Staff
Of course, the five lines and four spaces of the staff cannot possibly account for every single pitch an instrument can play or a person can sing. To extend the staff to include these pitches, ledger lines are added above or below the staff. Ledger lines and the spaces between them continue the same alphabet of the treble or bass clef.
unit 1a · Foundations of Tonal Music: Pitch
Practice
Missing Notes
Press the gap — select the letter
or type it on your keyboard