Treble clef vs bass clef

Cafe Society
1

I’m a guitar player who can just barely read music. But I’ve also messed around with pianos and basic music theory classes, and I’ve never gotten a good answer as to why there’s both a treble and bass cleff.

The dual notation systems are, in my opinion, just a cruel way to confuse an already difficult new language. It’d be like having the same alphabet we use, but sometimes you spell words one way, and other times you have to transpose every single letter. Car would become bzq, and in regards to piano at least, you’d need to be equally fluent in both languages at the same time for it to be of any use!

Wouldn’t it be simpler to use the treble clef notation for both left and right hands, and just make a simple notation to indicate that one section is to be played at an octave or two lower than the other?

2

[QUOTE=filmyak]
I’m a guitar player who can just barely read music. But I’ve also messed around with pianos and basic music theory classes, and I’ve never gotten a good answer as to why there’s both a treble and bass cleff.

The dual notation systems are, in my opinion, just a cruel way to confuse an already difficult new language. It’d be like having the same alphabet we use, but sometimes you spell words one way, and other times you have to transpose every single letter. Car would become bzq, and in regards to piano at least, you’d need to be equally fluent in both languages at the same time for it to be of any use!

Wouldn’t it be simpler to use the treble clef notation for both left and right hands, and just make a simple notation to indicate that one section is to be played at an octave or two lower than the other?
[/QUOTE]

The only way to justify a one-clef system for all instruments is to get really happy with leger (ledger) lines.

Pianos and other instruments with broad ranges need both clefs to reference all notes in their range.

Just to help to clarify the two-clef system, when you see the Grand Clef with both bass and treble on the same piece of music, Middle C is the one leger line between the two. So if you start with the bottom line on the bass clef and run the alphabet up the clef, across Middle C, and on through the treble clef, it’s one continuous system.

To muddy the waters further, there are other clefs for other ranges. Soprano, Alto, Tenor, to name a few of them.

3

It’s a system that evolved gradually, over centuries, with multiple purposes. Going back a few centuries, most notated music was primarily for voices, and a five-line stave in most cases can accomodate a vocal line. Numerous clefs were used, C-clefs being the most common (these are the ancestors of the modern alto and tenor clefs). Over time, and with standardisation of instruments, fewer clefs came to be used, with the most common being F4 (=bass clef) and G2 (=treble clef). Note that even by Bach’s time, a high violin part would quite easily be written in a G1 clef, to avoid using so many ledger lines.

The most important thing is that they have origins in vocal music. The many octaves covered by a modern piano, or by an orchestra, were unheard of at the time when clefs were developing. The range from the bottom of a bass voice to the top of a treble could be supplied with a combination of basic F, C and G clefs. So these persisted through to our system.

Note, also, that there are numerous examples where a modern instrument does indeed sound an octave different to the notated clef, when treble and bass clefs couldn’t be used normally: for example, the piccolo sounds an octave up, the double bass down.
Edit: why F, C and G in particular? Hexachord - Wikipedia

4

I think filmyak understands about ranges, but is complaining that the notes are in different places on the staff in different clefs. For example, the bottom line in treble clef is E and in bass clef it’s G, meaning you have to learn two sets of note positions instead of one.

Instead, I find it helpful to think of treble and bass together as a single, gigantic staff, centered on middle C.

5

[QUOTE=friedo]
I think filmyak understands about ranges, but is complaining that the notes are in different places on the staff in different clefs.
[/QUOTE]

Oh no, I realise that - the question seemed to be why these different layouts exist. What we have is a reduction from earlier habits, where any clef could be placed on any line, with the aim being to keep the notes within the five staff lines as much as possible.

6

As someone who tries periodically to play sheet music on guitar, the issue for me is more a matter of which string to play the note on. Having at least two ways (and in some cases four or five) to play almost every note (the bottom four on the Bass E string being the exception) unless there’s an accompanying TAB layout, I get lost pretty fast.

Not attempting a hijack, just mentioning another unsettling aspect of guitar sheet music conventions.

7

No, that’s a fair point - regular notation is far from ideal for polyphonic fretted instruments. And it’s no coincidence that tablature has been around for a long time. Handy Wikipedia example.

8

Thanks for the responses. Is anyone aware of someone trying to come up with a better system? Has one been invented? As you managed to figure out from my post, just having the note written on the bottom line be the same would be a massive improvement, IMO.

[QUOTE=Zeldar]
As someone who tries periodically to play sheet music on guitar, the issue for me is more a matter of which string to play the note on.
[/QUOTE]

In college, I studied classical guitar for a while. While tab does solve that problem, it doesn’t convey the timing or duration of each note, which is why it’s not used in classical music. You pretty much need to know the song or have the tab written underneath standard musical notations for it to be effective.

But in classical music, as you play several parts at once, it’s quickly obvious where a note is meant to be played on the fretboard. There’s usually only one place that makes sense when you add the separate voices together, and from that start point, you progress “logically” to the next notes from there. Best answer I can give.

9

[QUOTE=filmyak]
Is anyone aware of someone trying to come up with a better system?
[/QUOTE]

Plenty of people have tried. Some examples at http://www.mnma.org/ .

10

They should definitely ditch it and start over. First and foremost, the distance between notes-as-written (whether between a line and the space above it, as we have it now, or some other nomenclatural system) should always be a half step. No key sigs. None of this "Oh, we’re in the key of F# major so the distance between A (which is A#) and B is a half step whereas the distance between G (which is G#) and A (which is A#) is a whole step. None of this “Oh, it’s an accidental, I put a ‘natural’ sign in front of that second C (which would be C# like the one before it) so it’s C-natural, so the two notes which are written in exactly the same space between lines are actually a half-step apart.”

Pick a line, call it A = 440, the space above it is A#, line above that is B, space is C, line is C# and so on.

Then color-code the lines. A is rec, B is green, and so on.

I think something better could be done about duration, too.

11

I’ve moved this one to Cafe Society, our forum for the ARTS. Perhaps they can also contribute.

samclem General Questions Moderator

12

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
They should definitely ditch it and start over. First and foremost, the distance between notes-as-written (whether between a line and the space above it, as we have it now, or some other nomenclatural system) should always be a half step. No key sigs. None of this "Oh, we’re in the key of F# major so the distance between A (which is A#) and B is a half step whereas the distance between G (which is G#) and A (which is A#) is a whole step. None of this “Oh, it’s an accidental, I put a ‘natural’ sign in front of that second C (which would be C# like the one before it) so it’s C-natural, so the two notes which are written in exactly the same space between lines are actually a half-step apart.”

Pick a line, call it A = 440, the space above it is A#, line above that is B, space is C, line is C# and so on.

Then color-code the lines. A is rec, B is green, and so on.

I think something better could be done about duration, too.
[/QUOTE]
This is a bit like saying, “They should completely ditch the English language and start over…”

Systems of notation are rarely devised all at once or in a vacuum. They evolve over time (as **GorillaMan ** already pointed out in this case) and add “features” as needed. More to the point, they have historical momentum. Surely you’re not volunteering to renotate every piece of music written since roughly the year 1500 (and before) yourself, are you?

13

[QUOTE=AHunter3]
They should definitely ditch it and start over. First and foremost, the distance between notes-as-written (whether between a line and the space above it, as we have it now, or some other nomenclatural system) should always be a half step. No key sigs. None of this "Oh, we’re in the key of F# major so the distance between A (which is A#) and B is a half step whereas the distance between G (which is G#) and A (which is A#) is a whole step. None of this “Oh, it’s an accidental, I put a ‘natural’ sign in front of that second C (which would be C# like the one before it) so it’s C-natural, so the two notes which are written in exactly the same space between lines are actually a half-step apart.”

Pick a line, call it A = 440, the space above it is A#, line above that is B, space is C, line is C# and so on.

Then color-code the lines. A is rec, B is green, and so on.

I think something better could be done about duration, too.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry, as a pianist for the last 16+ years, I can’t agree with this.
The current notation system is tonality-oriented (tonality-biased, if you prefer); in the key of F# major, just like in any other key, the notes as they appear on the page refer to the scale appropriate for the piece. This is a historical anomaly perhaps, but one that we have to live with. I don’t find the fact that a note in the second space of the treble clef refers to A# instead of A in F# major - it’s just a matter of “thinking in the key” rather than reading note-for-note and thinking in terms of letter names. I don’t think in terms of letter names when I’m sight-reading - it’s too inefficient.

Serialists (Schoenberg, Webern et al) wrote music based on a twelve-tone system which has some of the same elements you describe. That is, each half-step in the octave was assigned a number, rather than looking at the notes in a tonal capacity. Then, of course, they had to write it in the end in traditional notation, which makes it cumbersome to read. I agree that for non-tonal music the system is less than desirable, but at least it’s standard.

To the OP, I think that in the modern system of notation, the best solution made above is to think of the treble and bass “grand staff” as one continuous system. Sometimes young students have trouble with the idea that this B, and another B, and a third B all in different places on the staff have the same name, but actually refer to different notes. The point of this system is that letter-reading alone is insufficient for quick translation into a multi-octave instrument like the piano or marimba (and many modern wind instruments, since most have vastly improved their range over the last several hundred years since notation was modernized). The composer of the music has indicated in which octave the note is to be sounded; to displace some or all of them is to change the piece of music.

14

[QUOTE=filmyak]
I’m a guitar player who can just barely read music.
[/QUOTE]
It’s worth mentioning, although you may already know, that guitar music is written one octave higher than the note played, to accommodate the bulk of the range of the instrument on a G clef (if a pianist reads the note on the first ledger line below the staff, out comes Middle C, but if a guitarist reads it, out comes C below Middle C). But in practical terms it’s like having it’s own clef, even though it’s written as a G clef.

15

What Emeria said. The tonal orientation of the system is essential. If you’re going to say ‘ditch key signatures’, you haven’t grasped the significance of tonal relationships in the music which this notation was created to describe.

More than five lines in one system is more difficult for the eye to scan at speed. Some fifteenth-century manuscripts used a 6-line stave, and the number of obvious pitch errors is far higher in these than in contemporary five-line examples. Adding extra lines is disastrous for speed of comprehension. And I hate to think what a large orchestral score would look like.

Colour coding is also a problem - colour-blind musicians are going to struggle, are they not? Also, if you ever get to see a concert harp up close, you’ll see what your system looks like (although this still only has seven lines per octave!)

What’s the problem with it? Yes, you need to become familiar with the system along with familiarity with the music, but because the music and the notation have evolved alongside each other, you’re going to be hard-pressed to simplify the notation.

16

Another thought for the reformist suggestion: speed of notation. I just timed how long it took to write out Happy Birthday on a blank sheet of manuscript paper. 45 seconds. Any alternative system which is proposed as a realistic everyday tool needs to be able to match this.