Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: O/T Why are Clefs like they are? (Read 6575 times) previous topic - next topic

O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Nothing to do with Noteworthy I'm afraid, but I have a musical question and figured that there's a lot of knowledgeable people on here who may be able to give me an answer! :-)

How have Clefs developed over the years? Does anyone else think it is unnecessarily complicated have four clefs that all read differently?

Wouldn't it make more sense to have all four Clefs give an 'E' on the bottom line of the stave for instance? The bass Clef would only need to be shifted by a couple of tones from the G to the E on the bottom line, and the Alto clef only one tone (if I remember the Alto correctly?).

If you did the above, then you'd still have Bass, Alto, Tenor and Treble Clefs for different pitches; but switching between them would require no thought at all. Composing and playing would be many many times easier!!

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts, and also an explanation as to why we have this odd system! (I'm sure there is one).

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #1 –
Hi Rob!
Very interesting topic.
I think some other people and I argued this here before.
I assure you the that the reason why four different clefs exist is just 'custom'.

I can imagine these clefs have long long histories with them.
But just one clef (and octave shift) is sufficient to describe any music nowadays I think. Or at least two clefs(Bass and Treble).

Talking about the Alto clef for the viola, my opinion is why don't we treat the viola as a transposing instrument in F and use treble clef.  That is, if the player play the note notated 'G', this sounds 'C' actually.
And this makes all violine players very easy to play the viola.

Actually this is already done with the saxophones for instance.
All the music for the saxophones from sopranino to contrabass
are written in the treble clef and this makes sax players possible to play any instrument withe the same fingering.

Some people might say that these different clefs are useful to reduce legerlines.
But speaking of the tenor clef for the cello, the 'E' on the second legerline above the bass clef is quite acceptable to read and at the same time the bottom line on the treble clef.
Doesn't this mean that we don't need to use the tenor clef?

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #3 –
For that matter, why are notes the way they are? The natural sign may mean "up from default" or "down from default," depending on the key signature. Then there is the matter of enharmonic spelling, yada yada yada...

If only our predecessors could have seen the future, they would have described notes mathematically in terms of absolute pitch, absolute duration, and so forth. In elementary school, we would all learn how to read (123.446,34.579,-18.23,34.906) to represent a single note, it would be universal, and easily programmed. There would be no staves, clefs, or key signatures; just spreadsheets.

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #4 –
Robert, you'd need additional coding to represent note values.

Kaz, I have trombone parts for my band that go up to middle line B or the 3rd space C in treble clef.  That's a lot of leger lines without changing clefs.

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #5 –
Simply put, the original staff was 11 lines. Since it was hard to read 11 lines, they removed the middle line making two staff of 5 lines each.

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #6 –
Francis Paquin, you're right that eleven-line staves have been used at times, but earlier staves had fewer lines.  I've seen examples of three-, four-, five- and six-line staves in early notation.  Often the clef would change position - even from [abbr=measure, although the concept was rather different from today's version]"bar"[/abbr] to "bar", to prevent the notes going outside the staff.  These earliest clefs were all C clefs.  F clefs arrived later, and G clefs later still.  If we hadn't changed from pneumes and rhythmic modes, it's possible even more clef types would have been introduced.  Imagine:  bass in F clef, baritone in A clef, tenor in Bb clef, alto in C clef, mezzo in E clef, and soprano in G clef, all changing line every "bar" or so.  Quite a nightmare for the rehearsal harpsichordist!

I suspect the eleven-line stave was a more-modern curious side-line.

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #7 –
Re: "Simply put, the original staff was 11 lines. Since it was hard to read 11 lines, they removed the middle line making two staff of 5 lines each."

There may have been an eleven-line staff at some point, but the so-called "grand staff" was invented AFTER the fact (probably by some misinformed neighborhood piano teacher or other). That the bass clef and the treble clef are separated by a non-existent line is a mere fortuity. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the evolution of these two clefs. The original staff had only one line.

Re: O/T Why are Clefs like they are?

Reply #8 –
An old posting, but nevertheless, maybe it can be revived.
The multitude of clefs developed in the early days of printing, before page setting with indivdual symbols was invented. During those days printing was done with a single wood block for the entire page that needed to be engraved in mirror image. Carving a lot of small ledger lines was rather more difficult than carving the complete lines of the stave and wasteful in space because they could fewer staves on one page. They used clef symbols and positioned them on any of the lines of the stave to keep the notes within the stave.