This


Is a C-Clef

(entry for 6/21/2024)


If you’ve read my essays on Treble and Bass Clefs, you’ll already know that Clefs evolve from Capital Cursive versions of the note names that they define. But I can’t see it in the case of the C-Clef. To my eye it looks nothing like a Capital letter C. However, I’m assured by the experts that that is where it came from, so I have to give in and admit that the note name it defines is the note C, in this case so-called Middle C. (So-called because it supposedly is the note it the middle of a piano keyboard. It isn’t. There is no note in the middle of a piano keyboard! The exact middle of an 88-note standard piano keyboard is the crack between the E and the F, just above ‘Middle C.’)

 

The C-Clef is a very versatile clef. There are two versions of it that are used every day by classical musicians. There are also two versions that used to be used quite a bit, but are barely ever used any more. (There’s also a fifth version that exists theoretically but is never used today, and probably never has been.)

 

The most-used of the C-Clefs is the Tenor Clef. It looks like this:





As you can see, it places the note C on the fourth line of the staff. (That is, the second line from the top. Staff lines are numbered officially starting at the bottom, as is true of most things in music.) The ‘gap’ that is half-way between the middle and the top of the clef symbol is how the note C is defined, just as the two dots in the F clef, above and below a line, show where F is.

 

This clef is used a lot by classical ‘cellists, bassoonists, and tenor trombonists, though it isn’t their ‘normal’ clef, that is, the one they use the most. (They all three use mostly the Bass Clef.) I don’t know of any Marching or Concert Band music that uses them, though I suppose some composer or arranger somewhere has done so.

 

‘Cellists sometimes also use the Treble Clef, though bassoonists and trombonists do not.

 

I personally find the Tenor Clef to be the hardest of all clefs to read, even though I have invented a set of Tenor Clef Flash Cards that are very nice to look at and handle, but I haven’t used them enough (yet) to really learn the Clef well. As the saying goes, it’s very ‘counter-intuitive’ to me.

 

The next-most-used clef is the Alto Clef (also called the Viola Clef), which looks like this:





The people who use this one the most are viola players, though there is some music written in the 19thand 20th centuries for something called an Alto Trombone, which uses this same clef. I don’t think anybody makes Alto Trombones anymore, so most music written for them is usually played on a Tenor Trombone. For this reason, some specialist-type trombone players have learned this clef, which must be very confusing, as it’s so close to the Tenor Clef that they already knew.

 

For some inexplicable reason, although I have never touched a viola, I find the Alto Clef very easy to read. Why I should find the Alto easy and the Tenor very difficult, I have no idea. But that’s the way I am.

 

Now that you’ve met the Treble, Bass, Alto, and Tenor Clefs, you’ve covered all the commonly used ones. (‘Common’ being a relative turn. Most musicians have never tried to read a C-Clef, unless they play an instrument that uses one. But the Bass Clef is very well known, and the Treble Clef even more so. In fact, the Treble Clef is by far the most-widely-used clef of all. Many wind instruments, even ones with low pitches, read only from the Treble Clef. (Saxophones are an excellent example, but this involves the concept of transposing instruments, which is another subject for another time.)

 

There are two more C-Clefs you should probably know about, even though they are pretty much obsolete. Here they are:


Soprano Clef:




and Baritone Clef:

 





There’s also one more C-Clef. This one has its ‘gap’ on the second line (up from the bottom). If it actually existed it would be called the Mezzo-Soprano Clef, but I don’t think it has actually ever been used. If it was, it was a long time ago.

Now you may recall that there is also an F-Clef that is called the Baritone Clef. (It puts the note name F on the middle line of the staff.) In fact, for every C-Clef Baritone Clef you see in your life, you’ll probably see ten F-Clef ones. That is, if you ever see any at all!

 

At first glance, it might seem confusing that there are two different Baritone Clefs to choose from. But the confusion will disappear when you realize that both of them are to be read the same; that is, they put all the note names involved in exactly the same places. They’re just two different way of showing the same notes. (There’s similar doubling up between the C-clef Soprano Clef and the G-Clef Soprano Clef., with an identical set of facts regarding the two.)

 

That’s it for clefs, for now. In the next post we will move on to the person who invented music notation as we use it today: Guido d’Arezzo.


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