Chapter 1 – Staffs, Clefs and Ledger Lines Introduction In this first chapter we will look at how music is presented on the written page, so that everybody understands what has been written, no matter what type of music they are interested in.
The Note Names You may be familiar with the appearance of written music on the page – a series of, apparently, mysterious/incomprehensible ‘blobs’ and other symbols, presented on a series of lines, which, themselves, don’t seem to make a great deal of sense!
But there is some GOOD news – you only have to remember the first 7 letters of the alphabet with every note being allocated one of the first 7 letters! So, every note on a piece of music has one of the these letters – ABCDEFG BUT, there are more notes than just 7 – so we use these letters over and over again. Before we look at how these letters are used let’s introduce the ‘frame’ on which we place the notes – which is called the STAVE.
Historical Note In earlier times all notes were written on a system of 11 lines:
The Original Stave
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The problem was that it made reading the music difficult – especially when the notes were positioned at the extremes of the stave The answer was to split the stave into two separate staves with a gap between them:
The Stave split into two
So, there were now two staves of 5 lines each – with a space between the two stave where the extra line used to be – the extra line is shown on the diagram with a circle. So, back to the letters of the notes:
The Note Names again: Now we can label the notes according to where they appear on the lines:
Stave Lines Labelled
Notice that we have put different symbols in front of the two sets of lines – this is important because it allows us to differentiate between the two sets of notes. The top symbol is called the TREBLE Clef or G Clef (after the line on which its tail curls) The bottom symbol is called the BASS Clef or F clef (after the line in between the two dots) So, we have our lettering system – just seven letters to remember, BUT there are a number of instances of each letter!
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You will also notice that one note appears on both clefs – the note labelled as Middle C in the diagram. It is called Middle C for two reasons: It is the letter which appears on the (hidden) middle line between the sets of five staves On the piano the note is approximately in the middle of the keyboard (see below)
The Notes on the Stave and how they relate to the piano keyboard
Memory Jogger Two mnemonics which might help you to remember and ‘read’ the notes on the Treble Clef are: EGBDF (pronounced EgeebeedeeF) – for the notes ON the five lines FACE - for the notes BETWEEN the five lines You might remember the notes ON the lines of the BASS clef with the phrase Grizzly Bears Don’t Fly Aeroplanes
Exercises 1 On each of the following pieces of music write in the name of the note – be careful when labelling the Bass clef notes
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Exercises 2 On the staves below write in the notes shown by the letters – the first couple are done for you. Use an oval (ellipse) for the notes and BE CAREFUL TO PLACE THEM ON, OR BETWEEN THE CORRECT LINES!
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Summary You should now understand: •
Notes are written on STAVES, the most common of which are the Treble Clef and the Bass Clef (there are other clefs but they are nowhere near as common as these two)
•
The notes are named after the first 7 letters of the alphabet and these letters are used over and over again
•
One note fits neatly in between the two clefs – and this is called Middle C
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Chapter 2 – Notes and Note Duration Recap In the last chapter we saw that notes are placed on and between sets of lines called Ledger Lines and the position of the notes are named after the first 7 letters of the alphabet (and these are used over and over again). We gave the two sets of ledger lines names – the G Clef an the F Clef, and they are also known as the Treble and Bass Clefs.
Introduction We now know where to place our notes – but not what kind of notes to place on and between the lines. The principle idea here is that DURATION – i.e. how long will the note last, when played (or sung) We can now introduce the names of the notes (and their respective duration) Our base is that of a note which lasts for ONE beat – imagine counting
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