This

is Not a Treble Clef!


But this:

Is.



“What’s the difference?” I hear you say. Well, there is no difference in the clefs themselves. The difference is in Where They Are.

 

The first example has the clef floating around in outer space, with no reference to show where its home is. The second example has the clef grounded firmly on a five-line something-or-other called a Staff. 

 

Both examples are called by the name G-Clef, which is a special musical shape that evolved from the cursive letter G. Its purpose is to show you where the note with the letter-name G is located. In the second example the pig’s-tail circle in the middle of the shape is curled around the second line of the staff. (That is, the next-to-bottom line. In music, everything is bottoms-up. The first line of any staff is the bottom line. And vice versa.) This shows that the note called G is on the second line. (And by ‘on,’ I mean the line runs through the note-head, not above or below it. Like this:




But in the first example that’s all the clef is, just a G-Clef., because there’s no staff to show where the note G goes. In the second example it’s both—a G-Clef and a Treble Clef, which earns that name by having the G specified as the second line up.

(Specifically, this particular G note is, on the piano, the G above Middle-C. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, stay tuned. We’ll get there, in a later chapter.)

 

Any clef can move up and down, and thereby move the note-name up and down. For example the pig’s-tail could circle around the bottom line instead of the second one, putting the note-name G on that line. It’s still a G-Clef in that case, but it’s no longer a Treble Clef. Its name changes when it’s moved, and it’s now called a French Violin Clef. Here’s what that would look like:




Note that the loop now circles the bottom line (shown in red for emphasis), not the next-to-bottom one. It's still a G-clef, but it's not a treble clef anymore.


If it’s any comfort, the French Violin Clef is now obsolete. Violins in any country, including France, now use the Treble Clef. If you see the shape of the G-Clef somewhere, you can assume that it’s meant to be a Treble Clef, because it almost always is. But, technically, as has already been stated, it’s only a Treble Clef if the curlicue is centered around the second line of a staff.

 

(A side-item: If you put the curl around the third line, that is, the middle line, the clef would, in addition to still being a G-Clef, be called a Soprano Clef. Not only is that one obsolete, it also to the best of my knowledge has never been used in real life! It’s purely theoretical.)

 

The clefs were invented in what we now call the Middle Ages. That is, in the period between about 700 AD and 1200 AD. They were invented to helps choirs know what note to sing when they sang in church. Now, anyone who was female was not allowed to sing in church, so choirs were made up only of men and boys. (Boys whose voices had not changed yet.) The boys sang high notes, and the staff they sang from used the G-Clef. Treble means ‘high,’ so that’s why the G-Clef on the second line of the staff is called the Treble Clef, because that’s where the boys sang.

 

The men sang the lower pitches, and the staff they sang from used the Bass Clef. But that’s another story for another day.


The staves used to have only four lines each instead of five. That will be explained in Chapter 4, when we meet Guido, the man who invented music notation.


An interesting story about the G-Clef is that there used to be a music store in the northern part of the Seattle area called Scandia Music. Only on the neon sign in front of the store, they used a G-Clef instead of a capital S. ('Gcandia' is a bit hard to pronounce, I think you'll admit.) Evidently they thought that the G-Clef, which I'm sure they called a Treble Clef, although it wasn't, there being no staff, looked a bit like a cursive Capital Letter S. I don't think it does, but evidently they thought so.


They're out of business now, but I doubt that's why.

 

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