Clefs is a symbols for indicate the location on a music staff of a some note. This is done for the convenience of reading the musical staff and minimizing additional lines on it.
Treble Clef
The most common clef, which indicates that the note G4 is located on the fourth line of the musical staff. This clef belongs to the G clefs group.
Bass Clef
Indicates the location of the F3 note on the second line of the stave. This clef belongs to the F clefs key group.
Tenor Clef
Tenor Clef points to middle C, which is located on the second line of the stave. This clef is included in group C keys.
Alto Clef
Alto Clef points to middle C, which is located on the midline of the stave. This clef is included in group C clefs.
Other clefs Of the Groups G, F and C
In addition to the clefs discussed above, there are others:
- French Violin Clef;
- Soprano Clef;
- Mezzo-Soprano Clef;
- Baritone Clefs;
- Subbass Clef.
All these clefs are shown on the picture below.
- The group G clefs indicates note G4;
- Group C clefs indicates note C4 (middle);
- Group F clefs indicates note F3.
Neutral Clef
Neutral Clef is also known as percussion clef and is used to indicate musical parts of percussion instruments There is no note step.
Octave Markers
Sometimes, despite the presence of clefs, it can be difficult to add music to five lines staff. There are Octave Markers for this.
They are indicated by the number 8 or 15 located below or above the clef.
Let’s see how it works with the example of G treble clef and G4.
- If 8 is above the clef, it means that in front of the clef is a note that sounds an octave higher than the one that should be there.
- 15 above the clef means that in front of the clef is a note that sounds 2 octaves higher than the one that should be there.
- 8 below the clef means that in front of the clef is a note that sounds an 1 octave lower than the one that should be there.
- 15 below the clef means that in front of the clef is a note that sounds 2 octaves lower than the one that should be there.
Guitar Tab
Guitar Tab is used for musical staff notation of guitars of all kinds. The tablature is also different from the stave. It consists of 6 horizontal lines (for a six-string guitar), indicating instrument strings and numbers on them, indicating frets. In the tablature, the number of lines indicates the number of strings.
